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 that Providence was not above making use of the meanest instruments to the accomplishment of a good end. There were times when he was even constrained to hope that, by the same Great Influence, a spark of magnanimity had been awakened in Christie's abandoned soul; and once, when Eliza reported that her "pa" had given her a nickle, he almost believed that those seemingly ineffective words of his had, thanks to that same all-powerful intervention, made an impression. He became positively hopeful that this might be the case, when nearly a month had passed, and no further harm had come to his "lamb."

One morning Bella Jones, who ordinarily kept rather fashionable hours, came panting up the hill, the first to arrive. She was a dressy young person, whose father kept a "sample-room." Looking hastily about, to make sure that no one was there to have forestalled her, she cried, still quite out of breath:

"Eliza Christie, she's lost her ma! Died in the night of a hemorag! Eliza ain't cried a drop, 'n her pa he's just settin' there like he was shot!"

"Like he was shot!" Simon shivered at the words as if a cold wind had passed, striking a chill through the intense August day.