His letter, written out word for word, just as he sent it, would very likely excite laughter. But it answered the end for which it was sent. It awoke in another true heart sympathy for the poor desponding Morely; it strengthened another kind hand to labour in his behalf. So he did not find himself homeless and friendless in the streets of a great city, as he had been before. In Montreal a welcome awaited him, and a home; and something like hope once more sprang up in Morely's heart, as he heard his new friend's cheerful words and responded to the warm grasp of his hand. Stephen and his wife saw hard times after Morely went away. And yet not so very hard, either, seeing they were endured for a friend. They never said to each other that the times were hard. There were no more suppers or breakfasts of thin gruel at the little log-house on the hill. In a few days after his first memorable visit, Stephen Grattan was there again, and again Farmer Jackson's oxen called forth the wonder and admiration of the little Morelys. For Stephen, as he took great pains to explain to Mrs Morely, had taken advantage of the opportunity afforded by the return of the farmer's empty sled, to bring up the barrel of flour and the bag of meal that ought to have been sent up the very night her husband went away. There were fish, too, and meat, and some other things, and a piece of spare-rib, which, Stephen acknowledged, his Dolly had been saving for some good purpose all through the winter. And Stephen brought something for which Mrs Morely was more grateful than even for the spare-rib. He brought an offer of needle-work from a lady in the town who had many little children. The lady, it seemed, had a strange prejudice against sewing-machines, and in favour of skilful fingers, for the doing of fine white work. This did much to restore the mother's health and peace of mind; and a letter that came from her husband about this time did more. Not that it was a very hopeful letter. He said little, except that he had got work, and that he hoped soon to be able to send much more than the trifle he enclosed. But, though he did not say in words that he had withstood all temptation, yet at the very end he said, "Pray for me, Alice, that I may be strong to stand." And her heart leaped with joy, as she said to herself, "He did not need to ask me to do that." And yet she was really more glad to be asked that than for all the letter and the enclosure besides. CHAPTER SIX. A LIFE HISTORY. And so the winter wore away. January, February, March, passed; and when April came in there were only here and there, on the hillocks, bits of bare ground to tell that the spring was coming. "And to think that all my father's fields are sown and growing green by this time--and the violets and the primroses out in all the dales!" said Mrs Morely, with a sudden rush of homesick tears.