"Angel, do you remember what you said when you waked me last night? You said, 'Mother, there's a loud knock at our door.' I've never got those words out of my head since. All the time I was laying out poor Mrs. Carter I heard you, saying, 'There's a loud knock at our door, mother.' And when Mr. Carter told the doctor how well she had been all yesterday, and the doctor said, 'Yes, it's very sudden, very sudden indeed,' I heard you saying again, 'There's a loud knock at our door, mother.' And now, even when I'm turning the mangle, it seems to be saying those same words over and over again."
"Yes," she said, after a minute or two, "it's of no use me saying, 'I'm too busy, I can't let Him in just yet.' Death won't take that excuse when he knocks at the door."
That was a very dull day. Angel peeped out of the window, and saw the closed house opposite, and the darkened room upstairs where poor Mrs. Carter was lying. And then the man came to measure her for her coffin, and then Mr. Carter and his poor little motherless children came into Mrs. Blyth's house to get their dinner, and Mr. Carter cried all the time, and would hardly eat anything.
It was a very dismal day.
But after tea, as Angel was washing up the tea things, and her mother was folding the clothes for the mangle, an unusual sound was heard in the narrow court where they lived. It was the sound of singing—several voices singing.
In a moment, all in Pleasant Place had opened their doors or their windows and were looking out. They saw a young man standing in the middle of the court, and a little knot of people round him, with open books in their hands.
"What is it, mother?" asked little Angel, as Mrs. Blyth came into the room.
"That's young Mr. Douglas, Miss Douglas's brother," said her mother, in a whisper. "I've often seen him there when I've been to take the clothes home; he's one of the ministers here."
"Why, mother," said the child, as she listened to the singing, "they are singing your hymn—the hymn you learnt in the Sunday School."
"No," said her mother, "it isn't my hymn, but it's very like it."