We are now going to change the scene of our story, and, leaving for a while the quiet village of Colme, with its rushing stream and blossoming hedges, turn towards busy, bustling London.

My reader may chance to remember a slight mention made by Sands, in an earlier chapter, of a Jew and his son, of whose conversion Persis and Franks had been the happy instruments more than three years previously. It is to the humble abode of the converted Jew that I will now direct my reader's attention.

In a gloomy kitchen in a lodging-house situated in a low street of London, a poor girl sat, not on a chair, but on a box, for scanty indeed was the furniture in that dark, close room. The carpetless floor was uneven, the paper on the walls half peeled away, the plaster in the ceiling smoke-stained, cracked, and broken in several places. But it was not the aspect of the place that distressed Sophy Claymore; had it been adorned by rich tapestry, and pictures in gilded frames, it would have been all the same to her as far as regarded its appearance, for she was totally blind. Though years had passed since the heavy affliction had come upon her, the poor young woman had never yet become reconciled to the loss of her sight. She longed, she pined to look on the sunbeams once more, to see the flowers, and behold again the faces of men.

And then to Sophy Claymore poverty was a terrible trial. She had not been accustomed to it in her childhood. Sophy, the daughter of a worthless sharper, who had spent lavishly what he had gained wickedly, had known more of pleasure and folly during the first fifteen years of her life than usually falls to the lot of girls in her station. Now she was an orphan, poor, penniless, having hardly the necessaries of life, and owing even those necessaries to the generous kindness of a friend. Isaacs, the converted Jew, though no relative of Sophy, had adopted her as his own child at a time when he was better able to support her, and would not now throw her off, though he had scarcely a crust to share with the poor blind girl.

Then Sophy had sharp pain added to poverty and blindness. Ever since the terrible illness which had deprived her of sight, she had been subject to attacks of rheumatism, sometimes in her limbs, sometimes in her head. As she sat on the box in that low-ceiled room, dreadful shootings of pain from eye and ear and cheek made her ever and anon start and draw in her breath, and then utter a low plaintive moan.

But it was not only these trials, sore as they were, that made poor Sophy's blind eyes overflow with tears, and drew from her that impatient wish that she might lie down and die. Sophy had a wounded spirit as well as a suffering body. She had not the calm rest of that loving faith which has so often made God's children joyful in tribulation. She felt very impatient under her troubles, even though well aware that she had partly brought them on herself. Sophy had the fear of God in her heart; but she had as yet but little love, and therefore could hardly keep from murmuring, though she tried hard not to rebel.

"Oh, here comes Benoni, at last!" exclaimed Sophy Claymore, hastily drying her eyes, as a light footstep was heard on the dark wooden stair leading down to the kitchen. Sophy had never seen the face of her little brother, as she called the son of Isaacs; she had never met the smile of the child; but she would sometimes say that she could hear the smile in his voice; and she loved to fancy him like the picture of a fair white-winged cherub, with a ray streaming down on his bright, uplifted face, which she had admired when she was a child. If Sophy could have seen Benoni as he entered the kitchen, she would have beheld something very unlike the image in her mind; he would have appeared as a pale, sickly boy, of about nine or ten years of age, with a Jewish cast of feature, and very shabbily dressed. But perhaps Sophy was after all not so much mistaken as many might have thought her, and Benoni, seen with the eyes of the soul, might have looked much like a cherub still. There was a ray streaming down upon him, though not such as can be seen by mortal eyes.

"Oh! have you sold them, Benoni?" cried Sophy anxiously, as she heard her adopted brother softly enter the room.

There was not "a smile in the voice," but there was hope in it as the boy made reply, "Not to-day, dear Sophy. People seemed all so busy and bustling, they would not attend to me. But I hope to-morrow to sell some of your beautiful knitted things;" and Benoni put down a card-board box containing small cuffs and kettle-holders,—a box, alas! just as full as when he had taken it out that morning to try to sell something in the streets.

"I wish that the money thrown away on the wool had gone for bread!" said Sophy, desperately. She was dreadfully disappointed at the failure, and ready to burst into tears.

Benoni went and sat upon the box beside her, took her hand in his own, stroked and fondled it, and looked up lovingly into her face. "Poor sister," he said very softly, "I'm afraid you are still in sore pain; I wish I could take it away!"

"You feel for me, Benoni, you pity me," replied Sophy, almost with a sob; "why does not God pity too?"

"God does!" exclaimed Benoni, looking shocked at what sounded so much like the expression of a doubt of the love of his merciful Creator.

"It does not seem like it," muttered Sophy, half aloud, "or why does God leave us in misery like this?"

"God knows why, and we must trust him," said Benoni, simply. "Why, you trust even me, dear Sophy, a poor, foolish, little boy like me, when I lead you about in the street; you are sure that I won't bring you into danger, or take you where you would get any harm. You just hold me tight by the hand and walk on, and are never afraid. I think that's how we should feel about greater things. We should let the good Lord take us by the hand, and then not start back and feel frightened. He sees, you know, though we cannot see, what is the best road to take us along."

"I wish that I could feel as you do," sighed Sophy. "How do you get such comfort in religion? I scarcely ever have any."

"My comfort comes by thinking all about the Lord Jesus," said Benoni. "I'm often getting anxious and sad, and then when I think about him, all seems to grow sunny again."

"I also think of the Lord in his glory," observed Sophy; "but it seems as if in the midst of all the happiness of heaven he would not care to think about me."

"But I like best to think about the Lord when he was on earth," said Benoni; "most of all when he was a little boy living at Nazareth with his mother. Then I know he can understand all that I feel, and the little things that trouble me so. Joseph was not a rich or a great man you know; he was only a simple carpenter, and had to work for his bread. Don't you think that Joseph may sometimes have been ill, or out of work like my father, and that Mary may scarcely have known how to get food to give to her husband and son?"

"Perhaps so," replied Sophy, thoughtfully, "but one can hardly fancy it. All the pictures of the Virgin Mary that I used to see made her look dressed like a queen, and sitting on clouds, and one can't imagine that either she or the Holy Child could ever really want a meal."

"Ah! but one can't trust pictures," said Benoni; "it is very likely, as I once heard dear Persis say, that the Lord Jesus had a hard, struggling kind of life when he was a boy. And then he lived in a very wicked place; we know that from the Bible. I dare say that he often heard bad words and saw things that would grieve him; and I dare say that bad boys would tempt him, and jeer at him, and torment him, because he never would join them in doing anything wrong. You can't think what a comfort it is to me to think that the Lord had such common troubles as these."

"In all points tempted like as we are," repeated Sophy, the apostle's words recurring to her mind.

"I do love," continued Benoni, "to remember that it was when he was a boy, not many years older than I am, that the Lord said, Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business? It showed that doing God's will was in his mind then, that he was preparing when he was a child for the great, great work,—the business of saving the world. And perhaps the Lord had something to suffer, too, when he was a boy, preparing him for the terrible trials that came upon him at last; perhaps he had little crosses—like ours—before he had to take up the great one, and many a thorn to pain him, even in his quiet home, long before the cruel soldiers put the platted crown round his head. Now, being hungry and having very little to eat may have just been one of these thorns."

"But I dare say that the Lord could have covered the table with abundance even when he was a boy, if he had chosen to do so," said Sophy.

"But I don't suppose that he ever did choose to do that," replied Benoni, in a very thoughtful tone, for he was a child who reflected much. "The Lord wouldn't make bread for himself when he was a man; it is not at all likely that he would do so when he was a boy. No, I dare say that the Holy One tried to help Joseph, and to cheer his mother, and told them that he was sure that their heavenly Father would never forget them. I dare say that the Lord looked then at the sparrows and the lilies, and thought how God clothed and fed them, and then up to the blue, blue sky, where his heavenly Father dwells, and never doubted that Father's love, however hungry and poor he himself might be."

Benoni Isaacs expressed himself like a child, but Sophy felt that the love and joy and peace that breathed in his simple words were not of earth, but from above. The little one beside her was, like Samuel, early called to listen to the word of God, and to answer in trustful obedience, Speak Lord, for thy servant heareth. Sophy envied Benoni his power of looking upwards by faith, and seeing God's love in all things, more than she envied him the sight of his bodily eyes. The girl and her adopted brother might be compared to travellers on a wide ocean. With Benoni there were heavings and tossings, a gale of trouble lifting the waves on high; but love to God was like bright sunshine on that stormy sea, turning the foam into crests of pearls, the billows to waves of gold. But Sophy was like one who journeys towards a frozen north, at a time when the sun for long days is absent. All around her was becoming dreary and chill; the ice of mistrust was gradually gathering and thickening around her, till it seemed as if it would hold her fast as in a prison, so that she should make no more progress towards heaven;—never get forward, never get through to open water and a brighter sea! There is something more terrible in this gradual freezing round the soul than in the sudden shock of temptation. It seems more impossible to "sheer off" from a danger like this. If we can thus find mistrust beginning to spread around us its deadly chill, if the slightest doubt of God's love arise like a film on the water, let us instantly turn our thoughts towards the Sun of Righteousness though his rays may be hidden from our eyes; let us not be content to rest for an hour where shoals of unbelief are forming around; let the very north wind of trouble only drive us more rapidly towards the clear south, till we feel at last the warmth of that Sun which has healing and life in each beam.