“Take Mrs. Campbell’s rocking-chair while we talk. Save your back whenever you can, Mrs. Longman.” “Oh, no, sir, it better becomes me to stand in your reverence’s presence.” “Pray, sit down. No, but I insist upon it. I have something to say to you which cannot be said in a minute.” The widow sighed profoundly and sank into the easy-chair. She thought she knew what was coming. Without the least intention of eavesdropping, she had heard enough of the conversation that had that evening passed between the minister and his wife—and which, by the way, had never been intended to be concealed—to know that they expected to leave the rectory under such reverse of fortune as would compel them to use the closest economy in their domestic arrangements. Therefore Elspeth thought that she had been summoned to the parlor to receive her “warning” or her discharge. And she felt not so sorry for herself in the prospect of losing a good home as for the curate and his wife on having to dispense with her services. She was turning over in her meek mind the question of how, without seeming presumptuous, she could offer to remain with them and serve them without wages, just so long as her strength and also her clothes and shoes should last, and if they could afford to keep her even on such easy terms as her board and lodging. Mr. Campbell broke gently in upon her troubled thoughts by asking her: “Have you ever received any letter from your son since he has been away, Mrs. Longman?” “Not one, sir, though I feel sure in my mind that he has writ to me, maybe many letters, and they have all gone astray; and then what hurts me worst of all is that he may think I must have got some of his letters and as I was too mad at him and too unforgiving to answer any of them. And I don’t even know where to write to tell him any better.” “But when at last you meet, face to face, then you can tell him.” “Oh, yes, sir. And I know that we shall meet again. He who raised the widow’s son from his bier will hear the poor old widowed mother’s prayer, and bring her boy back. Though it seems long! Oh, it seems long! But all the while it comforts me to think that if I don’t know where he is, the Lord does! If I can’t see him, the Lord can! And I may pray to the Lord for my boy and He will hear me!” “How old are you, Mrs. Longman?” was the curate’s next seemingly irrelevant question. “Forty-three, sir; will be forty-four on the thirty-first of December. But I must look full sixty, my hair is so white, and my face so thin and wrinkly.” “Well, you have good health, and you Yorkshire people are long-lived. You may live forty years longer yet—forty happy years with your son.” “Oh, minister! what does your reverence mean? Have you heard anything? Have you got anything to tell me?” inquired the mother, startled by something in the curate’s tone or look, and speaking with repressed eagerness. “Well, something has come. Have you anybody who would be likely to write a letter to you?”