“Amen!” he said. And there came to Mrs. Roberts a feeling that this earnest prayer, for the second time repeated by two men who prayed, was a sort of seal from the Master.
She turned away from both gentlemen then; the tears were very near the surface. She must do something to tone down the beating of her heart. Sallie was at hand, and she went with her to another corner of the room, and a low-toned conversation was carried on, scraps of which floated back to the gentlemen in the form of “sheets,” “grape jelly,” “mutton broth,” “a soft pillow,” and the like.
“I feel my patient growing better,” the doctor said, with satisfaction.
“Is there no father here?” Mr. Roberts asked.
The doctor shook his head, but answered:—
“There is the most pitiful apology for a father that I ever saw,—a mere wreck of a man! Spends his time in a sort of weak drinking, if I may coin a phrase to describe him; he actually uses no energy even in that business. Just staggers around and bemoans his lot; a most unfortunate man, in his own estimation, with whom the world, through no fault of his, has gone wrong. He is never downright intoxicated, and never free from the effects of liquor. He is much like a wilted leaf in the hands of this boy and girl. They could pitch him out of the window without much difficulty, and if the fall did not kill him he would shed tears and say it was a hard world. But now, what do we see, when the name of father is so dishonored,—made a wreck, as it were? Why, the order of nature is reversed, and these children take on the protective. They are father and mother, and he is the weak, sinning child. The way that that boy and girl have worked to keep their miserable father from starving or freezing is something to astonish the very angels. They shield him, too; nobody who wants to reach their hearts must blame him. They are a study!—as different from the other inhabitants of the alley as the sky is different from that mud-hole down there. It isn't a good simile, either. There is no religion in their efforts. They are the veriest heathen.”
“How do you account for the development?”
The doctor shook his head:—
“I don't account for it; it is abnormal. There must have been a mother who left her impress. I can't learn anything about the mother—she died when the girl was an infant; but I would like to know her history. I venture to assert that she belonged to Christ, and that a gleam of the divine pity that she saw in him, and loved, left its impress on her children. That is somewhat mystical,” he added, smiling. “I rarely talk in this way; it must have been your wife who set me off.”
“But she is the most practical and energetic of beings!”