SOUGHT AND FOUND.
"Ring the bells of heaven! There is joy to-day,
For the wanderer now is reconciled:
Yes! A soul is rescued from his sinful way,
And is born anew—a ransomed child!"
OUR scene changes from the Highland glen to a large mercantile house in the city of London. It was three o'clock on a winter day, and the gas had already been lighted indoors and in the streets; but work was going on busily yet. Clerks were running here and there giving orders to the many porters who stood awaiting them, while several still worked hard at the desks to which they had been chained for hours.
The season was a busy one, and work-hours were longer than usual then; but there was no look of discontent on the faces—visions of holiday-time and Christmas were rising before most and cheering them on. Besides, the heads of that firm had always a kindly word for their employes. Here and there, in a pause of the busy work, the young men might be heard discussing their plans for the coming evening or the approaching Christmas week.
"I'm off to the theatre to-night," said one, addressing a gentle-looking lad who sat beside him. "Will you come with me, Farran? There is a famous new actor to appear, and the play is a good one. There's no use asking Macintosh or any of his set, for they never go; they're a dull lot. But you're different. Besides, you've seen so little of the world, it will do you a deal of good. Say yes, and I'll manage about a ticket."
The lad thus addressed hardly seemed to hear the question put to him, for just then he was looking fixedly at a neighbouring desk, at which sat a handsome young man, with a look of quiet joy on his face that told of a heart at peace.
Then he turned quickly, as if awakening out of a dream. "A dull lot, did you say, Perkins? Then Macintosh does not belong to it. He is always so happy; you never see him sulking and disagreeable, like some of the other fellows. I was just looking at him now, and wondering how he contrives always to be so cheerful?"
"Oh, well, I suppose he's happy enough. I bear him no ill-will, but I hate cant. Now, what about the theatre? Let us leave Macintosh alone; he can go his way, we'll go ours. A short life and a merry, say I!"
Farran hesitated; he liked neither the tone of his companion's voice nor the words he spoke. Was it merely his own thoughts, or did whispered words really reach his ear—"If sinners entice thee, consent thou not"?
In any case, the effect was the same. A whitewashed house in a country village rose before his eyes; and there, with a bunch of pure white roses in her hand, stood his gentle, loving, widowed mother as he had seen her last, when she said farewell to him, and repeated the very words which now sounded in his ears: