"Why, Titus, you are offering the most of us all in time and labour!" exclaimed Roger Hall. "You've got your work cut and measured, Titus Wilson," snapped Tabitha. "If one of them lads'll bide quiet while you can drum ABC into his head that it'll tarry there a week, 'tis more than I dare look for, I can tell you." "There's no telling what you can do without you try," was the pithy answer of Titus. "I've been marvelling what I could do," said John Banks modestly, "and I was a bit beat out of heart by your sovereigns and nobles; for I couldn't scarce make up a crown by the year. But Titus has showed me the way. I'll learn one of the lads my trade, if Collet 'll agree." "Well, then, that is all we can do, it seems--" began Roger, but he was stopped by a plaintive voice from the couch. "Mightn't I do something, Father? I haven't only a sixpence in money; but couldn't I learn Beatrice to embroider, if her mother would spare her?" "My dear heart, it were to try thy strength too much, I fear," said Roger tenderly. "But you're all doing something," said Christie earnestly, "and wasn't our blessed Lord weary when He sat on the well? I might give Him a little weariness, mightn't I--when I've got nothing better?" To the surprise of everybody, Thomas had replied. "We're not doing much, measured by that ell-wand," said the silent man; "but Titus and Banks and Christie, they're doing the most." Poor Collet Pardue broke down in a confused mixture of thanks and tears, when she heard the propositions of her friends. She was gratefully willing to accept all the offers. Three of her boys were already employed at the cloth-works; one of the younger trio should go to Banks to be brought up a mason. Which would he choose? Banks looked at the three lads offered him--the noisy Noah, the ungovernable Silas, and the lazy Valentine. "I'll have Silas," he said quietly. "The worst pickle of the lot!" commented Mrs Tabitha, who made one of the deputation. "Maybe," said Banks calmly; "but I see wits there, and I'll hope for a heart, and with them and the grace of God, which Collet and I shall pray for, we'll make a man of Silas Pardue yet." And if John Banks ever regretted his decision, it was not on a certain winter evening, well into the reign of Elizabeth, when a fine, manly-looking fellow, with a grand forehead wherein "his soul lodged well," and bright intellectual eyes, came to tell him, the humble mason, that he had been chosen from a dozen candidates for the high post of architect of a new church. "'Tis your doing," said the architect, as he wrung the hard hand of the mason. "You made a man of me by your teaching and praying, and never despairing that I should one day be worth the cost." But we must return for a few minutes to Roger Hall's parlour, where he and his little invalid girl were alone on that night when the conference had been held.