Then came Alfred Ried in haste, and apologizing for the long delay. Gracie Dennis, watched him curiously; listened critically to his words. Was it to be supposed that this young man put religion “first, best, and always”; and considered his tongue as given to the Lord? Alfred bore the scrutiny well. He took very little notice of Miss Gracie, being entirely absorbed with another matter. He had settled opinions about Mrs. Roberts now, from which he would not be likely to waver. He had seen much of her during the week, and he knew she had not been idle. She had given him much valuable information concerning the boys in whom he had been interested all winter; and whom she had known for a week. Also he was aware that Sally and Mark Calkins had seen much of her, to their great benefit. She had made him her messenger on one occasion, and he had seen Sally Calkins take from the basket the clean, sweet-smelling sheets that were to freshen her brother's bed, and bestow on them rapturous kisses, while she murmured, “I'd walk on my knees in broad daylight through the gutter to serve her,—that I would.”
“Sheets aren't much, I suppose,” moralized the young man, as he walked thoughtfully homeward. “People with much less money than she has must have furnished them. It is thinking about things that makes the difference between her and others.”
But he had not quite found the secret. The main difference between her and many other people lay in the fact that she set steadily about doing the things she thought of that would be nice to do.
On the whole, young Ried was fully prepared to sympathize with Mr. Durant's opinion, that the South End Mission had secured a prize. Not that he was very hopeful over those boys. He felt that their conduct, under the circumstances, showed a depth of depravity which was beyond the reach of Mission schools; but it was a comfort to think that good things were arranged for them if they had but chosen to receive. He began at once to talk about them.
“Mrs. Roberts, they are worse than I had supposed. I am afraid that your patience is exhausted.”
Her answer was peculiar.
“Mr. Ried, I want you to spend to-morrow evening with me. I have invited my boys, and I depend on you and Gracie here to help entertain them.”
“Are you equal to such formidable work as that?” asked Gracie, with a mischievous smile.
He did not respond to the smile; he was looking at Mrs. Roberts, studying her face as one bewildered with the rapidity of her moves.
“I want to be,” he said, with feeling; “I want to know how to work, and I'm learning. Mrs. Roberts, I moved to my new boarding-house last evening, and my room is a perfect little gem. There is an illuminated text in it, and all around it is twined an ivy, growing,—don't you think! Hidden, you know, behind the frame in a bottle; and the text is one of my sister's treasures. Isn't that a singular coincidence?”