He went homeward as one in a dream.  He passed the drinking-saloon without a thought or wish of drinking.  The expulsive force of a new emotion had for the time driven out all temptation.  Raised above weakness, he thought only of this Jesus, this Saviour from sin, who he now believed had followed him and found him, and he longed to go home and tell his wife what great things the Lord had done for him.

[Decoration]

SCENE V.

Meanwhile a little drama had been acting in John’s humble home.  His wife had been to the shop that day and come home with the pittance for her work in her hands.

“I’ll pay you full price to-day, but we can’t pay such prices any longer,” the man had said over the counter as he paid her.  “Hard times—­ work dull—­we are cutting down all our work-folks; you’ll have to take a third less next time.”

“I’ll do my best,” she said meekly, as she took her bundle of work and turned wearily away, but the invisible arm of the Shining One was round her, and the words again thrilled through her that she had read that morning:  “He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence, and precious shall their blood be in his sight.”  She saw no earthly helper; she heard none and felt none, and yet her soul was sustained, and she came home in peace.

When she opened the door of her little room she drew back astonished at the sight that presented itself.  A brisk fire was roaring in the stove, and the tea-kettle was sputtering and sending out clouds of steam.  A table with a white cloth on it was drawn out before the fire, and a new tea set of pure white cups and saucers, with teapot, sugar-bowl, and creamer, complete, gave a festive air to the whole.  There were bread, and butter, and ham-sandwiches, and a Christmas cake all frosted, with little blue and red and green candles round it ready to be lighted, and a bunch of hot-house flowers in a pretty little vase in the centre.

A new stuffed rocking-chair stood on one side of the stove, and there sat Miss Florence De Witt, our young princess of Scene First, holding little Elsie in her lap, while the broad, honest countenance of Betty was beaming with kindness down on the delighted face of Tottie.  Both children were dressed from head to foot in complete new suits of clothes, and Elsie was holding with tender devotion a fine doll, while Tottie rejoiced in a horse and cart which he was maneuvering under Betty’s superintendence.

The little princess had pleased herself in getting up all this tableau.  Doing good was a novelty to her, and she plunged into it with the zest of a new amusement.  The amazed look of the poor woman, her dazed expressions of rapture and incredulous joy, the shrieks and cries of confused delight with which the little ones met their mother, delighted her more than any scene she had ever witnessed at the opera—­with this added grace, unknown to her, that at this scene the invisible Shining Ones were pleased witnesses.