The compassionate bookseller gazed upon her with deep feeling; the woman so feeble in body, yet so steadfast in what she believed right, was a new interest to him. He rose without a word, went to a dingy escritoir, opened the top, which folded down, and taking out a small bag of gold, selected a sovereign. “Go homewards,” said he, “and as you go, purchase a bottle of Port wine, and what my housekeeper calls a shin of beef. Make it _all_, mind you, every atom, into beef tea.” “For Richard?” “No, woman, for yourself; the weakness of your body adds to the weakness of your sight, and may, eventually, impair your mind. Pray, my good soul, for _yourself_, as well as for your son. Lay out the money faithfully for the purpose I have named; I know how it is, I know that you feed _him_--but you devote his surplus earnings to pay your little debts. I have seen you, on a Monday morning, enter a baker’s shop, with a thin, marble-covered book rolled in your hand. I have seen you pay the baker money, and you have left the shop without a loaf. Now, mind what I say.” “But a whole sovereign!” she said, “it is too much--might I not pay--” “Not a farthing out of that!” he exclaimed, “why you are quite as much of a shadow as when I saw you first. Well, if you are too proud to take it as a gift, your son shall repay it hereafter. And do not be so anxious about Richard; have you ever considered that great anxiety about any earthly thing, is _want of faith_ in almighty wisdom and goodness? Has He not taken your husband, as you believe, into his presence for evermore? At the very time when you feared most for your boy, did not a door open to him? and was not the crooked made straight? It has always seemed most unaccountable to me, how people, and good people like you--who have hope forever on their lips--suffer so much fear to enter their hearts.” But there was so much to cheer and encourage in the generosity and kindness of the worthy man, and in the faithful, yet unpretending, nature of his words, that the widow’s hope returned, at all events for a time, to her heart as well as to her lips. She might again have wandered--again have inquired if he thought her “little lad was quite safe,” for she never, in her best of days, could embrace more than one subject at a time--but his housekeeper entered with two cups of broth. “You forget the time,” she said, abruptly, “though I’m thinking it wont return the compliment to either of you; I can’t say much for the broth, for the meat is not what it was long ago.”