“What a pity!” she would say, “for she can’t hear him, nor save him, can she?  And so his prayers will be of no use!”

She lay still for a short time, considering the matter, and then said, as if a ray of comfort had come to her, “But Jesus can hear him, and perhaps He will give him what he needs, though he didn’t ask Him.”

Lucy would hope so too, and agree with her that when he got to heaven he would know better; for she had reason to believe, notwithstanding Antonio’s prayers to the Virgin,—­the remnant of the superstitious faith he had held from childhood,—­that he was nevertheless gradually coming to the knowledge of the Saviour as the only mediator and sacrifice for sin.  Nelly’s treasured card was fastened up conspicuously in their little room, and the rich colours in which the text “Looking unto Jesus” was printed, pleased the Italian’s southern love of colour, and led his eye often to rest upon it, as he spent the long hours sitting wearily in his chair.  And gradually he came to attach some real meaning to the words, which at first he had regarded merely as a pleasant thing to look at.  Nelly would sometimes tell him some of the things Miss Preston said to her about it, which clung tenaciously to her memory; and how the thought that Jesus was her Friend and Saviour, to whom she must always look in her need, had been her one comfort when left friendless and alone.  She often read to him a chapter out of the little Bible which was Lucy’s parting gift when she left Ashleigh, and had ever since been Nelly’s dearest treasure.  And he would always listen with deep interest to the history of the wonderful life which has come home to the hearts of thousands in all the centuries which have elapsed since it was lived among the hills and valleys of Palestine.  He loved to hear Nelly sing, in her rich, sweet voice, her favourite hymn, “I lay my sins on Jesus,” and would sometimes try to join in the strains himself as well as his feebleness would let him.  He showed his appreciation of the motto, in his own way, by placing his crucifix above the card, and he would sit for hours gazing silently at both.

Lucy, in her frequent visits, often read to him the passages which bear most directly on the love of Christ, and the full and free forgiveness of sin through Him; and she sometimes added simple comments of her own, preferring, however, in general, to leave God’s words to work their own way into his heart.  His church prejudices she never ventured to touch, feeling that to do so might arouse them against the reception of the simple gospel, and do him harm, by exciting his mind injuriously and bewildering him with conflicting opinions.  She avoided all collision with ideas which had been so long closely intertwined with the only ideas of religion he had, feeling sure that the light of gospel truth, once introduced into the heart, would sooner or later disperse the darkness of error by its own power.