"How piquant she is! I do not fear her quick, flame-like spirit when it is combined with so much conscience and principle. Indeed, I like her passion. It warms my cold, heavy heart. I wish she had shaken me, who deserved it, instead of the child, and if any makings-up like that in yonder room could follow, I would like to be shaken every day in the week. It would make a new man of me." In the excitement of his feelings, he had gone further than he had intended, and the dusk was deepening fast when he reached the house on his return. He felt not a little uneasy as to his reception after the rebuke he had given, but counted much on Annie's just and generous disposition. He entered quietly at a side door and passed through the dining-room into the hall. The lamp in the parlor was unlighted, but the bright wood fire shed a soft, uncertain radiance throughout the room. A few notes of prelude were struck on the piano, and he knew that Miss Walton was there. Stepping silently forward opposite the open door, he stood in the dark hall watching her as she sung the following words: "My Father, once again Thy wayward child In sorrow, shame, and weakness comes to Thee, Confessing all my sin, my passion wild, My selfishness and petty vanity. "O Jesus, gentle Saviour, at Thy feet I fall, where often I have knelt before; Thou wilt not spurn, nor charge me with deceit, Because old faults have mastered me once more. "Thou knowest that I would be kind and true, And that I hate the sins that pierced Thy side; Thou seest that I often sadly view The wrong that in my heart will still abide. "But Thou didst come such erring ones to save, And weakness wins Thy strong and tender love; So not in vain I now forgiveness crave, And cling to hopes long stored with Thee above. "And yet I plead that Thou would'st surely keep My weak and human heart in coming days; Though now in penitence I justly weep, O fill my future life with grateful praise." As in tremulous, melting tones she sung this simple prayer with tears glistening in her eyes, Gregory was again conscious of the strong, answering emotion which the presence of deep feeling in those bound to us by some close tie of sympathy often excites. But far more than mere feeling moved him now. Her words and manner vivified an old truth familiar from infancy, but never realized or intelligently believed--the power of prayer to secure practical help from God.