"How does Margaret get along?" asked Mrs. Bowen, in her most ghastly tone.
"Oh, very well indeed. She is the best girl we ever had, by all odds," replied Mr. Royden.
"I don't know but I shall have to have her come home for a few days," proceeded the other. "I shall, if my other darter continues so sick. I shall want her help more than the money, though we need that bad enough, Lord knows. We're all out of flour; and, if it wan't for the potatoes you sent over Sunday morning, I don't know what we should do."
"Oh, we shall do very well, my good wife!" cried Job, cheerily. "The Lord won't forget us! He is our friend: he is on our side, he is. It'll all be right in the end—glory be to God for that thought!"
"And for every suffering you will have your reward, my noble Christian brother," exclaimed Father Brighthopes, with kindling enthusiasm. "Believe it: you will come out of the fire all the purer and brighter for the ordeal."
Job squeezed a tear from his eye, and, looking up with a countenance full of emotion, as the red light from the western clouds fell upon it, took a book from the bench by his side.
"I don't know how I shall thank you for all the comfort I owe you," he said, with a tearful smile. "What you tell me is wonderful consoling for me to think about here at work, and to repeat over to my good woman, when she has her trials. But I take it as kind as anything your sending me the books by Margaret. I don't have much chance to read, and they will last me a good while: the better for me, I s'pose. You see, I read a sentence, then I hammer away at my work, thinking it over and over, and explaining it to my good woman: it does her good when she's having her bad spells."
"Which of the books do you like best?" asked the clergyman.
"The story of the Pilgrim's Progress is a glorious thing for a lonesome and fainting traveler on the same road, like me!" exclaimed Job. "But I had read that before, and got it pretty well by heart. Now, this Barnes' Notes interests me as much as anything; there was so many things in the Testament I wanted to have explained."
"I am delighted to think you are comforted by any of the books," said the old clergyman, warmly.