“Ah, Granny, Granny!” Martin said; “that is how we judge, but God does not judge like that. If the boy is to be whipped for an apple what do you suppose we deserve for our sins?” The old woman was silent. And Martin told her the parable of the Lord who forgave his servant a large debt and how the servant then seized his own debtor by the throat. The old woman listened; the boy, too, stood and listened. “God bade us forgive,” Martin said, “that we may be forgiven. Forgive every one, even a thoughtless boy.” The old woman shook her head with a sigh. “It’s true enough,” she said, “but boys get very spoilt nowadays.” “Then we old folk must teach them better,” Martin said. “That’s just what I said,” the old woman replied. “I had seven of my own, but now I’ve only a daughter left.” And the old woman began to tell him where and how she lived with her daughter and how many grandchildren she had. “You see,” she said, “I’m old now, yet still I work, for the sake of the grandchildren. And nice children they are, too. No one is so kind to me as they. The youngest won’t leave me for any one. It’s nothing but Granny dear, Granny darling all the time.” The old woman had quite softened by now. “Children will be children,” she said to Martin in reference to the boy. “The Lord bless them.” She was about to raise her bag on to her shoulder when the boy rushed up and said, “Let me carry it, Granny; I’m going your way.” The old woman shook her head and put the bag on the boy’s shoulder. And they walked down the street side by side. The old woman had forgotten to ask Martin to pay for the apple. Martin stood and watched them, listening to their voices as they talked together. When they were out of sight he turned in, found his spectacles on the stairs quite whole, took up his awl and sat down to his work once more. After a while he could not see to pass the thread through the holes and he noticed the lamplighter lighting the street lamps. “I must light up,” he thought. And he trimmed the lamp, hung it up and went on with his work. He finished the boot he was doing and turned it over to examine it. He then put away his tools, cleared up the bits of leather and thread and awls, took down the lamp, put it on the table and took the Bible down from the shelf. He wanted to open it at the place he had marked with a piece of morocco, but it opened at another place. And as he opened the Gospels Martin recalled his dream of last night. And no sooner had he thought of it than he seemed to hear some one move behind him, as though some one were coming towards him. He turned, and it seemed to him that people were standing in the dark corner, but he could not make out who they were. And a voice whispered into his ear, “Martin, Martin, don’t you know me?” “Who is it?” Martin asked. “It is I,” the voice said. And Stepan stepped out of the dark corner, smiling, and vanished like a cloud, and he was no more.