Every Sunday evening the barefooted and bareheaded child might be seen advancing confidently up to the chapel where rich and fashionable people worshipped God; but before taking her place she arrayed herself in a little cloak and bonnet which had once belonged to the minister’s elder daughter, and which was kept with Daniel’s serge gown, so that she presented a somewhat more respectable appearance in the eyes of the congregation. The minister had no listener more attentive, and he would have missed the pinched, earnest little face if it were not to be seen in the seat just under the pulpit. At the close of each service he spoke to her for a minute or two in his vestry, often saying no more than a single sentence, for the day’s labor had wearied him. The shilling, which was always lying upon the chimney-piece, placed there by Jane and Winny in turns, was immediately handed over, according to promise, to Daniel as she left the chapel, and so Jessica’s breakfast was provided for her week after week.

But at last there came a Sunday evening when the minister, going up into his pulpit, did miss the wistful, hungry face, and the shilling lay unclaimed upon the vestry chimney-piece. Daniel looked out for her anxiously every morning, but no Jessica glided into his secluded corner, to sit beside him with her breakfast on her lap and with a number of strange questions to ask. He felt her absence more keenly than he could have expected. The child was nothing to him, he kept saying to himself; and yet he felt that she was something, and that he could not help being uneasy and anxious about her. Why had he never inquired where she lived? The minister knew, and for a minute Daniel thought he would go and ask him; but that might awaken suspicion. How could he account for so much anxiety when he was supposed only to know of her absence from chapel one Sunday evening? It would be running a risk, and, after all, Jessica was nothing to him. So he went home and looked over his savings bank book and counted his money, and he found to his satisfaction that he had gathered together nearly four hundred pounds, and that he was adding more every week.

But when upon the next Sunday Jessica’s seat was again empty the anxiety of the solemn chapel-keeper overcame his prudence and his fears. The minister had retired to his vestry, and was standing with his arm resting upon the chimney-piece, and his eyes fixed upon the unclaimed shilling which Winny had laid there before the service, when there was a tap at the door, and Daniel entered with a respectful but hesitating air.

“Well, Standring?” said the minister questioningly.

“Sir,” he said, “I’m uncomfortable about that little girl, and I know you’ve been once to see after her; she told me about it; and so I make bold to ask you where she lives, and I’ll see what’s become of her.”

“Right, Standring,” answered the minister; “I am troubled about the child, and so are my little girls. I thought of going myself, but my time is very much occupied just now.”

“I’ll go, sir,” replied Daniel promptly; and after receiving the necessary information about Jessica’s home he put out the lights, locked the door, and turned towards his lonely lodgings.

But though it was getting late upon Sunday evening, and Jessica’s home was a long way distant, Daniel found that his anxiety would not suffer him to return to his solitary room. It was of no use to reason with himself, as he stood at the corner of the street, feeling perplexed and troubled, and promising his conscience that he would go the very first thing in the morning after he shut up his coffee-stall. In the dim, dusky light, as the summer evening drew to a close, he fancied he could see Jessica’s thin figure and wan face gliding on before him, and turning around from time to time to see if he were following. It was only fancy, and he laughed a little at himself; but the laugh was husky, and there was a choking sensation in his throat, so he buttoned his Sunday coat over his breast, where his silver watch and chain hung temptingly, and started off at a rapid pace for the centre of the city.

It was not quite dark when he reached the court, and stumbled up the narrow entry leading to it; but Daniel did hesitate when he opened the stable-door, and looked into a blank, black space, in which he could discern nothing. He thought he had better retreat while he could do so safely; but as he still stood with his hand upon the rusty latch he heard a faint, small voice through the nicks of the unceiled boarding above his head.

“Our Father,” said the little voice, “please to send somebody to me, for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.”

“I’m here, Jess,” cried Daniel, with a sudden bound of his heart, such as he had not felt for years, and which almost took away his breath as he peered into the darkness until at last he discerned dimly the ladder which led up into the loft.

Very cautiously, but with an eagerness which surprised himself, he climbed up the creaking rounds of the ladder and entered the dismal room, where the child was lying in desolate darkness. Fortunately he had his box of matches in his pocket, and the end of a wax candle with which he kindled the lamps, and in another minute a gleam of light shone upon Jessica’s white features. She was stretched upon a scanty litter of straw under the slanting roof where the tiles had not fallen off, with her poor rags for her only covering; but as her eyes looked up into Daniel’s face bending over her a bright smile of joy sparkled in them.

“Oh!” she cried, gladly, but in a feeble voice, “it’s Mr. Daniel! Has God told you to come here, Mr. Daniel?”

“Yes,” said Daniel, kneeling beside her, taking her wasted hand in his, and parting the matted hair upon her damp forehead.

“What did he say to you?” said Jessica.

“He told me I was a great sinner,” replied Daniel. “He told me I loved a little bit of dirty money better than a poor, friendless, helpless child, whom he had sent to me to see if I would do her a little good for his sake. He looked at me, or the minister did, through and through, and he said, ‘Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?’ And I could answer him nothing, Jess. He had come to a reckoning with me, and I could not say a word to him.”

“Aren’t you a good man, Mr. Daniel?” whispered Jessica.

“No; I’m a wicked sinner,” he cried, while the tears rolled down his solemn face. “I’ve been constant at God’s house, but only to get money; I’ve been steady and industrious, but only to get money; and now God looks at me, and he says, ‘Thou fool!’ Oh, Jess, Jess, you’re more fit for heaven than I ever was in my life!”

“Why don’t you ask him to make you good for Jesus Christ’s sake?” asked the child.

“I can’t,” he said. “I’ve been kneeling down Sunday after Sunday when the minister’s been praying, but all the time I was thinking how rich some of the carriage people were. I’ve been loving money and worshipping money all along, and I’ve nearly let you die rather than run the risk of losing part of my earnings. I’m a very sinful man.”

“But you know what the minister often says,” murmured Jessica:

“‘Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.’”

“I’ve heard it so often that I don’t feel it,” said Daniel. “I used to like to hear the minister say it, but now it goes in at one ear and out at the other. My heart is very hard, Jessica.”

By the feeble glimmer of the candle Daniel saw Jessica’s wistful eyes fixed upon him with a sad and loving glance; and then she lifted up her weak hand to her face, and laid it over her closed eyelids, and her feverish lips moved slowly.

“God,” she said, “please to make Mr. Daniel’s heart soft, for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.”

She did not speak again, nor Daniel, for some time.

He took off his Sunday coat and laid it over the tiny, shivering frame, which was shaking with cold even in the summer evening; and as he did so he remembered the words which the Lord says he will pronounce at the last day of reckoning:

“Forasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”

Daniel Standring felt his heart turning with love to the Saviour, and he bowed his head upon his hands, and cried, in the depths of his contrite spirit, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.”