Chapter VIII: Success

Norah was surprised on answering the door-bell on the morning of the following Sunday to find her uncle standing without.

"Why, uncle, who would have thought to have seen you so early? and your face looks so bright, as if you were bringing good news!" cried the girl.

"Maybe my face speaks the truth," answered the sailor, gaily, stamping to free his boots from the snow which had gathered upon them. "I thought that my little lass would go to church with a lighter heart, if I stepped over early to tell her what I heard yesterday evening when I looked in at old Meade's."

"Something about Sophy," cried the eager Norah.

"Ay, ay; what your friend Miss Persis told me, as well as she could spin her yarn between the good old gentleman's kind inquiries about my hand," replied Ned Franks with a laugh: "She kept her promise of speaking to Mrs. Lane about poor blind Sophy, and the lady took quite an interest in the story which, I'll be bound, was not marred in the telling. The long and short of it is, that the lady is able to put your poor young friend into the asylum, and she took Persis, I mean Miss Meade, in her own carriage to the workhouse, that she might carry the good news to Sophy herself."

"Oh, I am so glad! I wish I could have been there," cried Norah, clapping her hands.

"It was all along of you that Miss Persis ever knew Sophy Puller," said Franks, looking fondly at his young niece; "'twas you that fixed the end of the cable, whoever else may tow her along."

"Was not Sophy charmed with the news? Tell me all about it," cried Norah.

"You shall hear all to-morrow," replied Franks, "when you come home to see your mother. I must not keep you long now, lest your lady's breakfast should suffer. Persis said that poor Sophy's eyes filled with tears when she heard that she might be taken from the workhouse next week, and given a chance in London of earning some honest trade. She didn't say much in the way of thanks, but, I take it, she felt none the less grateful, because tears would come in the place of words. But when the lady was speaking to the matron at the other end of the room, the poor girl got a little quiet talk with your friend. Sophy squeezed her hand very tightly, and whispered, 'Tell my dear Norah that I have been praying, I have been knocking, and I do hope that God has heard me, and that His door of mercy will be opened even to me.'"

"Did she send me that message?" exclaimed Norah, her blue eyes sparkling with joy.

"Ay, ay, word for word, as I took them down from the lips of your friend. She seemed as glad to repeat as you are to hear them, Norah; I take it that Persis Meade is one as shares the joy of the angels when a sinner's poor broken heart first feels the comfort of heavenly hope."

"Persis is more like an angel herself than any one else that I know," cried Norah. "I can't think how I did not profit more by all that she told me when I went to her Bible-class on Sundays."

"She sowed in hope," observed Franks, "and God gives the increase at last. No doubt she trusted in the word, 'let us not be weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not.' * And now, goodbye, and God bless you, Norah;" Ned wrung his niece's hand as he spoke. "I'll be sure to drop in at your mother's and see you to-morrow, and walk back with you in the evening. You've done a kind act, my girl; you and your friend have made a good beginning to the year; may it be full of blessings to you and to her, both as regards heavenly things and earthly."

* Gal. vi. 9.

With a sweet sense of peace and joy, Norah Peele went to church on that first Sunday of the New-year. She was a very different girl from what she had been when the last year had opened upon her. Then, her first thought had been her own pleasure; Norah had been almost as apt as poor Sophy herself to build up fanciful hopes that must crumble at last into dust; but since she had come under the influence of her uncle, new feelings, new wishes, new hopes had arisen in Norah's soul. She had begun to realise that she was a redeemed, an immortal being, bound to glorify God in her body and her soul; and looking forward to the blessed time when she should inherit a crown of life, Norah was learning, in weal or woe, to "rejoice in hope of the glory of God." *

* Rom. v. 2.

Further results were to arise from Norah's wish to visit her poor friend at the workhouse, of which she had never dreamed when she had pondered over Mrs. Cupper's note with such perplexity and pain. Ned Franks, after his first visit to Persis Meade, very often found his way to the little cottage in the dell. As it was scarcely to be supposed that the magnet which drew him there was either the Jew who lodged in the upper room, or the poor old man who lived below, it was soon rumoured in the village that the teacher in Colme school was likely soon to bring home a bride.

"Is all true what folk say about your brother, eh?" asked Ben Stone, the jovial carpenter, of Bessy, who, with Norah at her side, had come to his workshop one bright day in the early spring to speak about the broken leg of a table.

"How can I tell what nonsense folk may say?" answered Bessy, peevishly.

"I guess yon little maid is in the secret," laughed Stone, as he looked at Norah's bright conscious face; "I guess she could tell us when her uncle's going to be married, and who's to be bridesmaid, and who's to be bride? I've only this to say," added the carpenter, bringing down his hammer with force on a nail, as if to give emphasis to his words, "Ned Franks, take him as he is, wooden arm and all, is the finest fellow in these parts, and the only one that I know of who would be a fit partner for such a woman as Persis."

"Well," said Bessy, shrugging her shoulders, "I don't see, for my part, what there's in her to take his fancy. I suppose that he thinks that her quick needle will serve as a portion, and that she'll earn something with that to help to keep the pot boiling."

"She has a right pretty face," observed Stone; "that goes a good way, I guess."

"Oh, it is not that!" exclaimed Norah; "Uncle Ned does not care for money, and values something better than beauty. He told me himself that he has long felt that it is the good Christian that makes the good wife, and that a marriage can be truly happy only when they who are to share an earthly home, also share heavenly hopes together."

THE END.