Now for it! This was the best chance she could ever hope to have, and her voice trembled a little: "I wanted to please Jesus too, mother, and Mr. Holbrook said if I did things to help you, and that you would like, _He_ would be glad---Jesus would, you know." A little silence, and then: "I want to please Jesus all the time now, because I love Him, and I'm going to try to do right." It was all out now, and her heart was beating so that it almost stopped her voice. Her mother shaded her face with her hand, and neither spoke nor moved. Kitty waited a little, then moved slowly towards the door of her bit of a bedroom; it was moonlight, so she needed no candle. "Good-night, mother," she found courage to say at last. "Good-night;" and her mother's voice sounded strangely, coming from behind the closely-held hand. There was something like a great sob in Kitty's throat as she went to her room that night; in her heart was a great longing for mother-love. She would have liked to kiss her mother good-night, but she felt how queerly that would look; even to _say_ good-night was something very unusual. So she knelt down beside her bed, and prayed for her mother. I don't think Mr. Holbrook knew that the few kind words which he spoke to Kitty Lewis, on her way home from prayer-meeting, were seeds which were going to spring up and bear fruit unto everlasting life. CHAPTER XIX. "And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord." "Father," said Tip, as, after having carefully measured out and given him some cough-drops, he sat down for a chat with him before school,--"father, didn't you and Mr. Bailey go to school together when you were boys?" "Yes," said Mr. Lewis. "Our fathers lived side by side, and we used to walk more than a mile to school together every morning; we were in the same class, too, and the best scholars in school. My! times are changed since that day. My father was considerably better off than his was, and now he's a rich man, and I'm nobody." "Was he such a boy as Will Bailey is--or, I mean, as Will used to be?" "I don't know much about Will; but I know his father was a sorry scamp, and many's the scrape he got me into. He took a notion to me. We lived near by, and were always together, and then I was as full of pranks as he was, I suppose. But he was a regular tyrant over the rest of the boys; they were more than half afraid of him; I don't know but what I was myself. Anyhow, I know I've thought I'd have been different, maybe, if I hadn't followed him so close in all his scrapes." "Father, did you know Mr. Bailey was different now?" "Different--how? What do you mean?" "Why, he comes to prayer-meeting, and speaks and prays, and seems to love to." "The mischief he does!" said Mr. Lewis, surprised out of his usual quiet tone. "I should think he _was_ different. Why, he used to make great fun of all such things." "Yes, that's what he says; but I tell you he don't make fun now." "When did all that happen?"