Ruth did not altogether forget her mother's words, and when the half-drunken man was brought to the Manse for a meal a little later on in the week, she somewhat timorously handed him two or three asters that she had picked from the garden. John Gage looked a little embarrassed, and at first seemed inclined to leave them in Ruth's possession, but the little hand remained outstretched, and with sweet winsomeness the child told him she had picked them for him. "Picked them for me! Well, well! then I guess I'll take them. Thank you." On several occasions, as he sauntered around the village, his attention was arrested by a childish voice calling him by name, so that he came to feel he had a friend in the minister's little girl. There were many head-shakings among the village wiseacres regarding the minister's interest in John Gage. It was generally agreed that while the preacher was well meaning enough, his knowledge of human nature was not very keen. The village constable knew John so well that he felt able to speak authoritatively on the matter. "'Tain't no use, young man," he said to the preacher. "We wus talking about him the other day in Cyrus Haag's blacksmith shop, and every man says the same as I do. He's just a-bleeding you, that's all. Five years' hard labour is what he needs; s'long as you'll take care of him when he's drunk, and feed him when he's broke, he'll just bum around. Don't I know the whole bunch? Didn't me and the county constable arrest his father when he pretty nigh murdered Sam Collins? Ain't his brother in Kingston Penitentiary this very minute? The only way to improve them fellers is to hang 'em." The authoritative information having been given the preacher, there was no further need of sympathy for him if he wilfully rejected the constable's gratuitous, labour-and-money-saving counsel. And the passing of the weeks seemed to confirm the "'tain't-no-use" judgment. People living near the Manse reported everything that happened, and a good deal that did not happen, in connection with the visits of John Gage and others of his type, for it was generally known that the preacher was "easy." But the preacher went on with his work, and whatever the results of his efforts might be, nobody ever doubted his belief in the Gospel he preached. Every Sabbath evening, in some form or other, he dealt with the Fact of Sin and its Soul-destroying power. He knew that "sin and punishment go through the world with their heads tied together," but he knew also, and he preached it as a fact that for him was beyond all controversy, that by immediate act of God salvation might come, and had come, delivering the life from the gripping, enslaving, murderous power of sin. * * * * *