blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions, and as a cloud thy sins.' You know how it is when the wind comes and clears the clouds all off, and you can look up through the blue, till it seems as if your eye would win into heaven itself. Keep the sky clear, my darling, so that you can always see up straight to God, with never the fleck of a cloud between. But do you ken what will clear the clouds away?"
And I looked up now with a smile and answered, "'The precious blood of Christ'"—for the two texts had been close together in one of the pages of my little book not long before.
Miss Cardigan clapped her hands together softly and laughed. "Ye've got it!" she said. "Ye have gotten the pearl of great price. And where did ye find it, my dear?"
"I had a friend, that taught me in a Sunday-school, four years ago,—" I said.
"Ah, there weren't so many Sunday-schools in my day," said Miss Cardigan. "And ye have found, maybe, that this other sort of a school, that ye have gotten to now, isn't helpful altogether? Is it a rough road, my bairn?"
"It is my own fault," I said, looking at her gratefully. The tender voice went right into my heart.
"Well, noo, ye'll just stop and have tea with me here; and whenever the way is rough, ye'll come over to my flowers and rest yourself. And rest me too; it does me a world o' good to see a young face. So take off your coat, my dear, and let us sit down and be comfortable."
I was afraid at first that I could not; I had no liberty to be absent at tea-time. But Miss Cardigan assured me I should be home in good season; the school tea was at seven, and her own was always served at six. So very gladly, with an inexpressible
sense of freedom and peace, I took off my coat and gloves, and followed my kind friend back to the parlour where her fire was burning. For although it was late in April, the day was cool and raw; and the fire one saw nowhere else was delightful in Miss Cardigan's parlour.
Every minute of that afternoon was as bright as the fire glow. I sat in the midst of that, on an ottoman, and Miss Cardigan, busy between her two tables, made me very much interested in her story of some distressed families for whom she was working. She asked me very little about my own affairs; nothing that the most delicate good breeding did not warrant; but she found out that my father and mother were at a great distance from me, and I almost alone, and she gave me the freedom of her house. I was to come there whenever I could and liked; whenever I wanted to "rest my feet," as she said; especially I might spend as much of every Sunday with her as I could get leave for. And she made this first afternoon so pleasant to me with her gentle beguiling talk, that the permission to come often was like the entrance into a whole world of comfort. She had plenty to talk about; plenty to tell, of the poor people to whom she and others were ministering; of plans and methods to do them good; all which somehow she made exceedingly interesting. There was just a little accent to her words, which made them, in their peculiarity, all the more sweet to me; but she spoke good English; the "noo" which slipped out now and then, with one or two other like words, came only, I found, at times when the fountain of feeling was more full than ordinary, and so flowed over into the disused old channel. And her face was so fresh, rosy, round and sweet, withal strong and sound, that it was a perpetual pleasure to me.