Years before, when he lived in New England, he remembered that one day when playing in the garret he had found in a chest of rubbish, a large, square book, which Hal had said was their grandmother’s Bible. Afterward he had seen it standing against a broken light of glass, to keep out the snow which sometimes beat in upon himself and Hal, and that was the last he could remember concerning that Bible or any other belonging to his mother. How then was he astonished to see it lying on the old round stand, the dim tallow candle casting a flickering light upon the yellow leaves and upon the figure of his mother bending over them, and loudly whispering the words she was reading. It was not an entirely new business to Mrs. Baker, the reading of the Bible, for after the news of Harry’s death she had hunted up the long neglected volume which had given her aged mother so much comfort. It might bring consolation to her, she thought, and so with tearful eyes and aching heart she had tried to read and understand the sacred pages, pencil-marked, some of them, by a sainted mother’s hand, and fraught with so many memories of the olden time when she was not the hard, wrinkled, desolate creature people knew as Mrs. Baker. The way of life was still dark and dim to that half heathenish woman, but she was determinedly groping on, following the little light she had, and each night found her bending over the Bible ere she sought the humble bed standing there in the dark corner, just where it stood that morning when her two boys went away. It was far more comfortable-looking now than then, for there was a nice, warm blanket on it, while the outer covering was clean and new. Rose Mather had kept her promise given in the hour of the poor mother’s bereavement, and scattered about the room were numerous articles which once did duty in the servants’ apartments at the Mather mansion. But the intruder did not notice these; he was too much absorbed with the stooping figure, whispering a part of the 14th chapter of John, and occasionally wiping away a tear as she came to some passage more beautiful than the others. There were tears, too, in the eyes of the rough man outside, but he forced them back, and pressing closer to the window, watched the lone woman inside, as, sinking down upon her knees, with the flickering candle shining on her wrinkled face, she prayed first for herself and then for him, _the boy_ standing without the door, and listening, while his heart beat so loudly that he almost feared she would hear and know that he was there. But she paid no heed, and the tremulous voice went on, asking that God would follow and bless, and care for the Billy boy far away, and bring him back to the mother who had never been to him what she ought. The name Billy boy touched a tender chord, and stretching out his hands toward her, the man who bore that name sobbed out, “Oh, mother, mother, I’m here, I’m here!”