Mrs. Keith was in the sitting-room, busied with some sewing, as usual, Mr. Dinsmore with her, when the children came rushing in, crying as if their hearts would break.
"Why, my child, what is the matter?" Mr. Dinsmore asked, in extreme surprise and alarm, as Elsie threw herself into his arms and clung to him, sobbing convulsively.
"O mother, mother! we've just seen a boy drowned!" cried Annis, burying her face in her mother's lap. "It was Tim Jones, and his mother had told him not to go to the river. And we heard him say such wicked words as he was going."
"And O papa! he's dead," sobbed Elsie, "and I can't even pray for him! O papa! he has lost his soul!"
"We do not know that certainly, dear daughter," he said, trying to comfort her; "we may have a little hope, for possibly he may have cried to Jesus for pardon and salvation, even after he was in the water."
"And Jesus is so kind, so ready to forgive and save us," she said, growing calmer. "But, O papa! it's such a little hope we can have that he did find the way, and get a new heart in that one minute!"
"Yes, that is too sadly true," he sighed. "Yet the thought uppermost in my mind just now is, What if this had happened to my child yesterday! O! my darling, how could I have borne such a loss? My heart aches for the parents of that boy."
"Dear papa, God was very good to us," she whispered, laying her cheek to his, as he held her close to his heart. "Oh, I am glad he did not let me fall into the river and drown, though I was so naughty as to go without your leave."
"But I had not forbidden you," he said tenderly; "and I know that my little girl loves Jesus, and tries to serve him; so I should have been spared the terrible pain of fearing that you were lost to me forever. Yet I cannot be thankful enough that I have you still, my precious, precious child!"