“I know it’s so,” said Mrs. Taylor, fervently.  “John Brown, I could worship you; I could go down on my knees to you.  Didn’t something tell you?—­didn’t you feel that you were sent?  I could kiss the hem of your laprobe.”

He was not able to speak; he was helpless with shame and fright.  Mrs. Taylor went on: 

“Why, just look at it all around, Julia Glossop.  Any person can see the hand of Providence in it.  Here at noon what do we see?  We see the smoke rising.  I speak up and say, ‘That’s the Old People’s cabin afire.’  Didn’t I, Julia Glossop?”

“The very words you said, Nancy Taylor.  I was as close to you as I am now, and I heard them.  You may have said hut instead of cabin, but in substance it’s the same.  And you were looking pale, too.”

“Pale?  I was that pale that if—­why, you just compare it with this laprobe.  Then the next thing I said was, ’Mary Taylor, tell the hired man to rig up the team-we’ll go to the rescue.’  And she said, ’Mother, don’t you know you told him he could drive to see his people, and stay over Sunday?’ And it was just so.  I declare for it, I had forgotten it.  ‘Then,’ said I, ‘we’ll go afoot.’  And go we did.  And found Sarah Enderby on the road.”

“And we all went together,” said Mrs. Enderby.  “And found the cabin set fire to and burnt down by the crazy one, and the poor old things so old and feeble that they couldn’t go afoot.  And we got them to a shady place and made them as comfortable as we could, and began to wonder which way to turn to find some way to get them conveyed to Nancy Taylor’s house.  And I spoke up and said—­now what did I say?  Didn’t I say, ’Providence will provide’?”

“Why sure as you live, so you did!  I had forgotten it.”

“So had I,” said Mrs. Glossop and Mrs. Taylor; “but you certainly said it.  Now wasn’t that remarkable?”

“Yes, I said it.  And then we went to Mr. Moseley’s, two miles, and all of them were gone to the camp meeting over on Stony Fork; and then we came all the way back, two miles, and then here, another mile—­and Providence has provided.  You see it yourselves”

They gazed at each other awe-struck, and lifted their hands and said in unison: 

“It’s per-fectly wonderful.”

“And then,” said Mrs. Glossop, “what do you think we had better do let Mr. Brown drive the Old People to Nancy Taylor’s one at a time, or put both of them in the buggy, and him lead the horse?”

Brown gasped.

“Now, then, that’s a question,” said Mrs. Enderby.  “You see, we are all tired out, and any way we fix it it’s going to be difficult.  For if Mr. Brown takes both of them, at least one of us must, go back to help him, for he can’t load them into the buggy by himself, and they so helpless.”

“That is so,” said Mrs. Taylor.  “It doesn’t look-oh, how would this do? —­one of us drive there with Mr. Brown, and the rest of you go along to my house and get things ready.  I’ll go with him.  He and I together can lift one of the Old People into the buggy; then drive her to my house and——­