"While I now freely confessed to her my pleasure at the improvement, and endeavoured to repay her loving attentions by coming home regularly in good time and sober, I forbore to question her as to what had made such a difference in her, and she was evidently anxious to avoid the subject. But I was resolved to find out how this new state of things had come about, and an opportunity for doing so soon presented itself. One evening there was a break-down at the mill, and I returned home earlier than usual. I was getting near the house, when I heard my wife singing, and the tune was clearly a hymn tune. The secret was discovered now. I took off my boots, and crept slowly up to the door. The singing had stopped, and all was quiet. Then I heard Kate's voice gently reading out loud to herself, and the words she read, though I could not catch them distinctly, were manifestly not those of any book of science or amusement: I could tell that by the seriousness of the tone of her voice. The conviction then came strongly upon me that she was reading the Bible, and that this book was the cause of the great change in her. A thousand thoughts stirred in my heart. I durst not venture to look in at the window, lest she should see me, for I had not at all made up my mind what to do. So I went back a little distance, put on my boots again, and came into the house as if nothing had happened. "I was unusually silent that night, and I saw Kate looking aside at me now and then with a half-frightened glance, as if she was afraid that I was going to change back to my old unkind ways. I watched her very narrowly, and she saw it, and was uneasy. The fact was, I wanted to get at her Bible, if she really had one, and I had not yet the courage to speak to her about it. She knew how I had talked to her against it, and made a mock at it, and I couldn't yet humble myself enough to ask for a sight of it. I noticed, however, that she looked a little anxiously at me when I turned down the baby's bed-clothes in the cradle to have a look at him; and as I could see no Bible anywhere about the room, it darted into my mind that she had hidden it under the clothes. So when she was gone up into the bedroom, to set things to rights upstairs, I found the book I was looking for stowed snugly away, and began to read it as eagerly as if it had been a rich man's will leaving me all his property." "You weren't far wrong there, William," broke in Thomas Bradly; "for the gospel _is_ our heavenly Father's will and testament, making us his heirs; and it's written with his own hand, and sealed with the blood of his dear Son. But go on, William."