When prayers were mentioned after breakfast the next morning, Bill Sanders deliberately left the shack. "Two doses of religion within twelve hours" were too many for him, as he often said in after years when recalling the missionary's visit. "We've a lot to be thankful for," said the much-tried wife, as the visitor spoke a few words of encouragement. The missionary glanced at the mud floor, at the roughly-hewn table, at the round blocks used for chairs, at the newspaper curtains, at the flour-sacks that partitioned off the bedroom, at the miscellaneous and damaged collection of dishes and tins that rested on the coverless table, and wondered wherein the "lot to be thankful for" lay. "We don't get along well with the farm; somehow Bill don't----." The words were checked, and nothing suggestive of complaint at the husband was uttered. "The children are well," she continued, "and they are obedient," and then, with a fine reticence that cannot be written, she added slowly, "I am trying to teach them about God; and I often tell them that if the shack isn't a credit to us, we must try to be a credit to it. You see, sir, I'm not strong, and with the little ones to look after, I can't work outside as much as a settler's wife ought; but anyhow, I'd rather leave my children a good character than anything else. Yes, God knows I would." Late in the morning the storm was over, and with a promise on the part of the missionary to return again as soon as possible, and on the part of the children to come to a Sunday School being started in the four-mile-distant schoolhouse, good-byes were said. Many weeks passed before the missionary could visit again the lonely little home. This time the mother, pale and trembling, was struggling from the stable with a pail of milk. Inside the house lay a four-days'-old baby boy. The missionary's heart was heavy. Since his last visit he had heard of the faithfulness and goodness of the wife and mother, and of the brutality of the husband and father, but he found it hard to believe that any man would compel his wife to do what this poor creature had been made to do in such a physical condition. At first there was fight in the missionary's heart, but when the lazy, cruel husband returned from his rabbit-snaring, the fighting spirit had been replaced by a great yearning for this man's salvation. To angrily rebuke Bill might only add to the wife's burden, while "the soul of all improvement is the improvement of the soul." Bill's need was of a changed heart. A prayer for guidance was breathed forth as he walked to meet one who, a few years ago, had promised to protect and love the wife whose spirit was crushed and whose heart was well-nigh broken by neglect and abuse.