“I believe you can see more goodness in folks than any one I know.  Now when I get cross with folks when they don’t do as I think they ought, what you say comes to my mind; and before I know I get to making excuses, too.  It’s done me a sight of good being with you.”

“And you have done me good,—­taken me out of self, and taught me to think of others.  I do not know how I should have been filling up my vacant hours but for you.”

“I wish somebody would say that much to me,” Mrs. Larkum said, sorrowfully.  “I don’t think I am any use to any one.”

“With these lovely children to care for, what more can you ask than to work for them?”

“Yes, I forget charity begins at home.”

“If you hadn’t fell in with me that day in the cars, and got helping us here on the Mill Road you’d a found some other good work to do.  Most young ladies like you would a turned up their noses at a plain old creature like me, skeered most out of their wits, talking so bold like as I did; but you answered me so kind like, I never thought you were anything but common folks like myself.”

“I am very thankful to God you did meet her that day.  Most like I would have been dead by this time, and father and the children on the parish,” Mrs. Larkum said, with a shudder.

“Yes, I am right glad, myself,” Mrs. Blake said, very complacently.

“She might have been amusing herself visiting with the aristocracy,” Mrs. Larkum continued, “and dressing up every fine day, instead of coming among us, bringing better than sunshine with her.  Dr. MacKenzie told me folks wondered at her coming among us so much; but he said he wished more of her class was like her.”

“Now I must leave you;” I said, rising suddenly.  “When you begin to praise me, I shall always go away.”

“Don’t you like us to tell you how much you have helped us?” Mrs. Larkum asked wistfully.  “It does me so much good to talk about you.”

“I believe helping you gives me more pleasure than anything I do; so why thank me for what I enjoy?”

“You won’t mind your own kind talking about you coming to us, and doing so much for the poor, will you?”

“Certainly not.  While I am not dependent on my neighbors for my peace of mind, I will come to see you two as often as I can do anything for you.”

“I am glad to hear that; I don’t get over one of your visits for days.  They brace me up to take hold of life, and do the best I can for father and the children.”

“I guess if folks does talk about you, they talked about one that was better’n any of us.  I was reading the other day about the respectable ones in their days complaining how Christ eat with publicans and sinners,” Mrs. Blake said, giving me one of her strong encouraging glances.

“Thank you, Mrs. Blake; after that I can brave any criticism.”

A few days later I walked in the early afternoon to the Mill Road.  Cook had prepared some special dainties for Mrs. Larkum; so with a small lunch basket on my arm I started on my errand of mercy.