“Sam,” said Mrs. Prency, earnestly, “in the book that you have been reading so industriously, from which you have learned so much, and from which I hope you will continue to learn a great deal, don’t you remember something that is said about the Lord having selected the feeble ones of this world to confound the wise?”

Sam looked down meditatively at the dropped shoe, and replied in a moment,—­

“Well, now you speak of it, ma’am, I think I do.”

“You certainly will believe that as much as everything else you have read there?”

“Why, of course; I’ll have to.”

“Very well, then; apply it to yourself, and try to be patient the next time that young man comes to annoy you.”

Sam rested his elbows on his knees and dropped the shoe again for a moment, and at last, resuming his work, said,—­

“Well, I’ll take your word for it, ma’am:  you know a good deal more about such things than I do.”

Gradually the cobbler’s face began to contract.  His needle and thread moved more and more rapidly through the buttons and the leather.  At last he laid the shoe aside with an air of desperation, looked up defiantly, and said,—­

“Mrs. Prency, I don’t mean no offence, an’ I ain’t the kind of person that meddles with other people’s business, an’ I hope you won’t feel hurt or angry at anythin’ that I’m goin’ to say to you, because there is somethin’ behind it.  So I hope you won’t think I’m meddlin’ with your affairs, if you’ll listen to me just a little while.  I—­I—­”

“Well?” said the lady, for Sam seemed to be hesitating about what he wanted to say.

“I don’t hardly know how to say it, ma’am, an’ I’m awfully afraid to say it at all; but—­well, there, Mrs. Prency, I guess I know why you are so very much interested in the religious welfare of that young lawyer.”

The judge’s wife had naturally a very good complexion, but her face flushed deeper as she looked inquiringly at the cobbler but said nothing.

“I’ve seen him,” said Sam,—­“I can’t help seein’ things when I’m goin’ along in the street, you know, or happen to look out through the windows,—­I’ve seen him in company once in a while with that daughter of yours, Mrs. Prency,—­with that young lady that seems to me to be too good to talk to any young man that lives in this town.  He is very fond of her, though; nobody can help seein’ that.”

“I suppose he is,” said Mrs. Prency, with an embarrassed manner.  “Young men have very quick perceptions and correct tastes in matters of that kind, you know.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said the cobbler, “and they don’t differ much from young women.  Seems to me your daughter, ma’am, seems to think a good deal of him, too.  Well, I don’t wonder at it, for he’s the finest lookin’ young feller anywhere about here; an’ if they go to thinkin’ more and more of each other as they go on, you would like him to be a good deal better man than he is.”