Helen turned and fixed her humid eyes upon the sign, and again read aloud, “It is never too late to mend.” Then her eyes fell on the kneeling child, and she crossed to the side where he was, and, placing her trembling hand on his head, asked tremulously: “What are you doing, my boy?” “I don’t know why, but I am praying for you.” “And Almighty God has heard you, for I shall never want to drink again,” said Helen, with a strange sense of freedom from the enslaving habit, while the child said simply that he knew it would be so. Helen then turned to the shoemaker, with a new light in her eyes, saying: “I am going to the dispensary for something for my nerves, and I will come back and accept your help. And you, little boy--I know I am low-down--but--and so unworthy--but will you let me kiss you for the prayer you said?” For answer, the child lifted his face to hers and kissed her, all the while seeming to be trying to see something through a maze. A great sob tore the bosom beneath the sordid rags, as the sweet breath of the little boy swept over her face, and Helen sobbed: “That’s the first pure thing that has touched my lips for so long that I can’t remember. And I’m going to try to take it with me to the throne of God. May He bless and protect you, whosesoever child you are, in the name of a broken-hearted mother who has lost her own little boy.” The shoemaker dug his big fists into his eyes, muttering something about the wax getting into his eyes, so that he could not see just then, while Helen, straighter now, and with a new purpose showing through her sodden features and ennobling them to womanhood again, said: “Good-bye, for a while, Mr.--Mr.----” “Goldberg--Morris Goldberg, madam. I’ll pe reaty for you to-morrow ven you come. And don’t forget de number, nor dot”--pointing to the card. “The God of us all will bless you for this day’s work. Good-bye. It is never too late to mend. Thank God! it is never too late to mend!” Helen, pale, but now strong in her new resolution and hope, left the humble shop and went out into the street, while the shoemaker went to a niche in a corner, and drew aside a curtain which had covered the sacred Shema, muttering, as he did so: “Hear ye, O Israel. There is but one God”--and ending with a fervent prayer for the saving of the soul in peril who had just left there. And he wist not that his face shone. CHAPTER III. As Helen Pierson disappeared from their sight, Loney turned to Morris Goldberg, saying: “Mr. Goldberg, how can you help that poor lady when you are so poor yourself? It takes a lot of money, don’t it, to go West? I heard some of the boys at the asylum say it takes more ’n fifteen dollars, and that’s an awful lot. That is more than you have, isn’t it?”