It is early yet to prophesy what Mr. Colson will do. Doubtless he will be a merchant; certainly he will be a Christian; possibly he will be an orator, of whom the world will yet hear,—a temperance orator, for instance. I know you would like to hear him read a poem. He is not confined to Will Carleton's style now, though he still reads with power some of those inimitable delineations of life; but Gracie Dennis offers no more criticisms when he reads. In fact, I have heard her defer to him, when a question arose, as one who had probably studied the passage, and caught its best. I am willing to confess that my poor black Dirk was a bit of a genius. The thought I desire you to catch is that so many of those poor fellows, who of necessity live by their wits in the city slums, are diamonds which could be fitted to shine. You take a diamond and throw it down in the dirt and filth, and put your foot on it and grind it in, and leave it there, sinking and soiling, day after day, year after year, and when somebody comes along and picks it out, how much will it gleam for him at first? Yet the diamond is there.
“Thou shalt be a royal diadem in the hand of thy God.” Mrs. Roberts had been at work hunting diamonds for His diadem.
As Mr. Colson stood there chatting freely with Miss Henderson, there was nothing about the association that looked incongruous, neither did it occur to any. There was not a trace of embarrassment about this boy from the slums; he had forgotten the slums, and stood talking with one of the aristocrats of the city.
How came she to talk with him, to allow herself to be entertained by him? Let me tell you: thereby hangs a tale. Some time before this evening—in fact, nearly two years before—Mrs. Roberts had come to a puzzle, and stood and looked at it doubtfully. Then she presented it to the others:—
“They are growing easy in their manners with me, learning to be gentlemanly without embarrassment, and thoughtful over little things without being ashamed of it; but I am afraid that with other ladies they would be sadly frightened and awkward. When Mrs. Delaney came in this evening I could but notice how utterly silent Mr. Colton became; he had been talking well before. It seems as though there was a great gulf between them and social advancement. How can we bridge it?”
Then young Ried ventured his thought:—“My sister Ester had a class in the Center Street Sabbath-school—nice little girls, who wore pretty dresses, and had their hair curled, and came from the best families. After she was taken sick, she told me one of her regrets was that she had not stayed well long enough to try a plan which she had. She meant to take a class of rough little boys in the mission-school, and she meant to ask the mothers of the little girls to let them come, once a month, and play with the little boys from the streets—she to play with them, and watch over them every moment; but to try to interest the girls in teaching the boys gentleness and good manners. I don't know how it would have worked. Ester was never well enough to undertake it; nor could she seem to enlist any one else in such service. It has grave objections, I suppose; but I have always thought that I should like to see something of the kind carefully tried.”
Mrs. Roberts, before this little story was half-concluded, had turned those eager eyes of hers on the speaker—eyes that always had a peculiar light in them whenever her soul took in a new suggestion.
“Thank you,” she said. “I see, oh! a great many things. I ought to have called in that dear sister Ester to help on this phase of the question before. It has always seemed to me as though we were doing her work.”