Stingy Willis alone had discovered their need.  With a delicacy which respected their reticence, and shrank from an offer of aid which might offend, he had hit upon this means of helping them.  Clearly, he had been thus surreptitiously supplying them with fuel for weeks,—­a little at a time, to avoid discovery.  And Mrs. Farrell, in her anxiety and preoccupation, had not realized that, with the steady inroads made upon it, a ton of coal could not possibly last so long.

“That, of all people, Stingy Willis should be the one to come to our assistance!” exclaimed the widow.

“And to think he is not Stingy Willis at all!  That is the most wonderful part of it!” responded Bernard.

“Often lately,” continued the former, “when I happened to meet him going in or out, I fancied that his keen old eyes darted a penetrating glance at me; and the fear that they would detect the poverty we were trying to hide so irritated me that sometimes I even pretended not to hear his gruff ‘Good-morning!’”

“Well, he’s a right jolly fellow!” cried Bernard, enthusiastically,

His mother smiled.  The adjective was ludicrously inappropriate, but she understood Bernard’s meaning, and appreciated his feelings as he went on: 

“Yes, I’ll never let anybody say a word against him in my hearing after this, and I’ll declare I have proof positive that he’s no miser.”

“He is a noble-hearted man certainly,” said Mrs. Farrell.  “I wish we knew more about him.  But, for one thing, Bernard, this experience has taught us to beware of rash judgments; to look for the jewels, not the flaws, in the character of our neighbor.”

“Yes, indeed, mother,” replied the youth, decidedly.  “You may be sure that in future I’ll try to see what is best in everyone.”

The next morning Mrs. Farrell went about her work in a more hopeful mood.  Bernard started for the office in better spirits than usual, humming snatches of a song, a few words of which kept running in his mind all day: 

  “God rules, and thou shall have more sun
  When clouds their perfect work have done.”

That afternoon Mr. Crosswell, the head of the firm, who seemed suddenly to have become aware that something was wrong, said to him: 

“My lad, how is it that your mother has not been doing the extra type-writing lately?  I find a great deal of it has been given to some one else.”

“She has been sick with rheumatism, sir,” answered the boy; “and her fingers are so stiff that she cannot work the machine.”

“Tut! tut!” cried the lawyer, half annoyed.  “You should have told me this before.  If she is ill, she must need many little luxuries” (he refrained from saying necessaries).  “She must let me pay her in advance.  Here are twenty-five dollars.  Tell her not to hesitate to use the money, for she can make up for it in work later.  I was, you know, a martyr to rheumatism last winter, but young Dr. Sullivan cured me.  I’ll send him round to see her; and, remember, there will be no expense to you about it.”