"I could 'ave got along better, if he'd 'a' paid me regular every night," said the squeaky voice of little Jim;--"but he was allers puttin' me off till it come even change, he said." "Well, 'ta'n't always handy," replied the other; "one doesn't like to break into a five-pound note for nothing; and I like to let it run till it comes even change." "But, brother," said Mr. Zebedee, turning over the great Bible that lay on the mahogany stand in the corner, "we must go to the law and to the testimony,"--and, turning over the leaves, he read from Deuteronomy, xxiv.:-- "Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren or of thy strangers that are in thy land within thy gates. At his day thou shalt give him his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon it; for he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it: lest he cry against thee unto the Lord, and it be sin unto thee." "You see what the Bible has to say on the matter," he said. "Well, now, Deacon, I rather think you've got me in a tight place," said Mr. Griswold, rising; and turning confusedly round, he saw the placid figure of the Doctor, who had entered the room unobserved in the midst of the conversation, and was staring with that look of calm, dreamy abstraction which often led people to suppose that he heard and saw nothing of what was going forward. All rose reverently; and while Mr. Zebedee was shaking hands with the Doctor, and welcoming him to his house, the other two silently withdrew, making respectful obeisance. Mrs. Marvyn had drawn Mary's hand gently under her arm and taken her to her own sleeping-room, as it was her general habit to do, that she might show her the last book she had been reading, and pour into her ear the thoughts that had been kindled up by it. Mrs. Scudder, after carefully brushing every speck of dust from the Doctor's coat and seeing him seated in an armchair by the open window, took out a long stocking of blue-mixed yarn which she was knitting for his winter wear, and, pinning her knitting-sheath on her side, was soon trotting her needles contentedly in front of him. The ill-success of the Doctor's morning attempt at enforcing his theology in practice rather depressed his spirits. There was a noble innocence of nature in him which looked at hypocrisy with a puzzled and incredulous astonishment. How a man _could_ do so and be so was to him a problem at which his thoughts vainly labored. Not that he was in the least discouraged or hesitating in regard to his own course. When he had made up his mind to perform a duty, the question of success no more entered his thoughts than those of the granite boulder to which we have before compared him. When the time came for him to roll, he did roll with the whole force of his being;--where he was to land was not his concern.