Jennings slept all night, and came out to breakfast with a queer, shamefaced aspect, yet with considerably less heaviness of foot than he had shown the night before. He ate heartily, as well he might, for the food was extremely appetizing. When he got up to go he stood still by his chair, seeming to be trying to say something. Seeing this, Brown came over to him and put his hand on his shoulder. "Yes, lad?" said he interrogatively. He was smiling and the smile transformed his face, as always. "I--feel better, this morning," stammered Jennings. "I--want to thank you. I'm ashamed of the way I talked last night. It was as you said. I knew better, but I couldn't seem to--to--" Brown nodded. "Of course you knew better," he said heartily. "We all know better. Every man prays--at some time or other. It's when we stop praying that things get dark. Begin again, and something happens. It _always_ happens. And sometimes the thing that happens is that we get a good sleep and are able to see things differently in the morning. Good-bye--and come back to-night." "Shall I?" Jennings asked eagerly. "Surely. We'll have oysters to-night, roasted on the half-shell over the coals in the fireplace. Like 'em?" "I never ate any that way," admitted Jennings. "It sounds good." And he smiled broadly, a real smile at last. "Wait till you try them," promised Brown. III BROWN'S BORROWED BABY On the following Saturday, at five in the afternoon, the previous hours having been filled with a long list of errands of all sorts, yet all having to do with people, and the people's affairs, seldom his own, Brown turned his steps home-ward. The steps lagged a little, for he was tired. At the house next his own--a shabby little house, yet with rows of blooming scarlet geraniums in tin cans on its two lower window sills, and clean, if patched, muslin curtains behind the plants--Brown turned in once more. Standing in the kitchen doorway he put a question: "Mrs. Kelcey, may I borrow Norah for an hour?" The person addressed looked up from her work, grinned a broad Irish grin, pushed back a lock of bothersome hair with a soapy hand, and answered heartily: "To be shure ye may, Misther Brown. I says to mesilf an hour ago, I says, 'Happen he'll come for Nory to-night, it bein' Saturday night, an' him bein' apt to come of a Saturday night.' So I give her her bath early, to get her out o' the way before the bhoys come home. So it's clane she is, if she ain't got into no mischief the half hour."