“Oh, that’s about all the comfort I’ve got left.”  This answer came forth from a full heart, and eyes brimming with tears.  “And I don’t s’pose I need any other, if I’ve got Jesus left I oughtn’t to need any thing else; but sometimes I get impatient—­it seems to me I’ve been here long enough, and it’s time I got home.”

“How is it with the boy who is expecting you; has he this same friend?”

The gray head was slowly and sorrowfully shaken.  “Oh, I’m afraid he don’t know nothing about Him.”

“Ah! then you have work to do; you can’t be spared to rest yet.  I presume the Master is waiting for you to lead that son to himself.”

“I mean to, I mean to, sir,” she said earnestly, “but sometimes I think maybe my coffin could do it better than I; but God knows—­and I’m trying to be patient.”

Then the train whirred on again, and Ester missed the rest; but one sentence thrilled her—­“Maybe my coffin could do it better than I.”  How earnestly she spoke, as if she were willing to die at once, if by that she could save her son.  How earnest they both were, anyway—­the wrinkled, homely, ignorant old woman and the cultivated, courtly gentleman.  Ester was ill at ease—­conscience was arousing her to unwonted thought.  These two were different from her She was a Christian—­at least she supposed so, hoped so; but she was not like them.  There was a very decided difference.  Were they right, and was she all wrong? wasn’t she a Christian after all? and at this thought she actually shivered.  She was not willing to give up her title, weak though it might be.

“Oh, well!” she decided, after a little, “she is an old woman, almost through with life.  Of course she looks at everything through a different aspect from what a young girl like me naturally would; and as for him, ministers always are different from other people, of course.”

Foolish Ester!  Did she suppose that ministers have a private Bible of their own, with rules of life set down therein for them, quite different from those written for her!  And as for the old woman, almost through with life, how near might Ester be to the edge of her own life at that very moment!  When the train stopped again the two were still talking.

“I just hope my boy will look like you,” the old lady said suddenly, fixing admiring eyes on the tall form that stood beside her, patiently waiting for the cup from which she was drinking the tea which he had procured for her.

Ester followed the glance of her eye, and laughed softly at the extreme improbability of her hope being realized, while he answered gravely: 

“I hope he will be a noble boy, and love his mother as she deserves; then it will matter very little who he looks like.”

While the cup was being returned there was a bit of toilet making going on; the gray hair was smoothed back under the plain cap, and the faded, twisted shawl rearranged and carefully pinned.  Meantime her thoughts seemed troubled, and she looked up anxiously into the face of her comforter as he again took his seat beside her.