“Oh, I do not know. I cannot tell. I can only leave him in God’s hand.” But she did not speak very hopefully.
“And surely there’s no better thing to do for him than that,” said Mrs Grattan.
“I know it. But I have hoped so many times, and so few of the poor souls who have gone so far astray as he has done come back to a better life. I fear no more than I hope.”
There was a long pause after that, and then, in a voice that seemed quite changed, Mrs Grattan said, “I never told you about Stephen and me, did I?”
“No. I know that you have had some great trouble in your life, like mine—indeed, your husband has told me that: that is all I know.”
“Well, it’s not to be spoken of often. But, just to show what the Lord can do when He sets out to save a poor creature to the uttermost, I will tell you what He has done for Stephen and me. It must be told in few words, though. It shakes me to go back to those days.
“We were born in Vermont—as good a State as any to be born and brought up in. It was quite a country place we lived in. My father was a farmer—a grave, quiet man. My mother was never very strong; and I was the only one spared to them of five children. We lived a very quiet, humble sort of life; but, if ever folks lived contented and happy, we did.
“Stephen was one of many children—too many for them all to get a living on their little stony farm; and his father sent his boys off as soon as they were able to go, and Stephen, who was the second son, was sent to learn the shoemaker’s trade in Weston, about twenty miles away.
“We had kept company, Stephen and me—as boys and girls will, you know—before he went; and it went on all the time he was learning his trade, whenever he came home on a visit. When his time was out, he stayed on as a journeyman in the same place; but he fell into bad hands, I suppose, for it began to come out through the neighbours, who saw him there sometimes, that he wasn’t doing as he ought to do; and when my father heard from them that they had seen him more than once the worse for liquor, he would let him have nothing more to say to me.
“You will scarcely understand just how it seemed to our folks. There was hardly a man who tasted liquor in all our town in those days. To have been betrayed into taking too much just once would have been to lose one’s character; and when my father heard of Stephen’s being seen a good many times when he was not able to take care of himself, it seemed to him that it was a desperate case. I think he would as lief have laid me down in the graveyard beside my little brothers, as have thought of giving me to Stephen then.