Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 1).djvu/242

 was Mrs. Baker" (Mrs. Baker was the landlady), she said. "She usually looks in the last thing."

"Pardon me for intruding, but I was anxious to know whether your son had arrived here in safety?"

"Yes, oh yes; some time since. Are you the gentleman who gave him the angel?"

"Yes," said John, simply.

"Thank you so much; you have made my little girl so happy. Children have strange fancies in sickness, and she has been talking about nothing but angels for days past. See," pointing to the sleeping child, it is the first night she has slept soundly for a whole week."

The holiest feeling John had ever experienced since he knelt as a child at his mother's knee passed over him. He had never before felt so thoroughly that a good action was its own reward.

"May I crave one great favour as a return for so trivial a service? Will you let me see your son?"

The widow immediately arose, took a lamp, and beckoned John to follow her into the next room. There was little Willie fast asleep in his cot. His lips, even in his sleep, were wreathed in a happy smile, and as John bent and reverently kissed them, they murmured softly: "Mr. Daubs!"

When John again mounted to his chamber it was with a light heart. His evil angel—dissatisfaction—had gone out of him, and his good angel—contentment—reigned in its stead.

From that time forth he shared the widow's vigils; he was to her an elder son—to the children, a loving brother. His heart, too, expanded in sympathy for his fellows, and under this genial influence his energies, previously cramped, expanded also. The best proof I can give of this, if proof be necessary, is that the picture which he shortly afterwards exhibited, entitled "The Two Angels," was the picture of the year, and brought to him the fame which had previously so persistently evaded him. One of the happiest moments in his life was when he took Dodo—now quite recovered—and Willie to view his "masterpiece."