The two following days, Friday and Saturday, were always a busy time at the chapel, for the whole place had to be swept and dusted in preparation for the coming Sunday. Never had Daniel felt so depressed and downhearted as when he entered the chilly and empty chapel early in the morning and alone; for Jessica was to follow him by and by, when her mother had strolled away for the day to her old haunts.

Only a week ago he and Jessica had gone cheerfully about their work together, Jessica’s blithe, clear young voice echoing through the place as she sang to herself, or called to him from some far-off pew, or down from the gallery. But now everything was upset and in confusion. He mounted the pulpit steps, and after shaking the cushions, and dusting every ledge and crevice, he stood upright in a strange and solemn reverie, as he looked round upon the empty pews, which were wont to be so crowded on a Sunday.

It would make a wonderful difference to the place, he thought, if anything worse should happen to his master; for even to himself Daniel could not bear to say the sad word, death. They could never find his like again. Never! he repeated, laying his hand reverently upon the crimson cushion, where the minister’s grey head had sunk in sudden dumbness before God; and two large solemn tears forced themselves into Daniel’s eyes, and rolled slowly down his cheeks.

He did not know who ever would fill the pulpit even on the coming Sabbath; but he felt that he could never bear to stay at the chapel after its glory was departed, and see the congregation dwindling down, and growing more and more scanty every week, until only a few drowsy hearers came to listen sleepily to a lifeless preacher. No! no! That would go a good way towards breaking his heart.

Besides all this, how he longed to be able to ask the minister what he ought to do about Jessica’s mother! But whether for instruction in the pulpit or for counsel in private the minister’s voice was hushed; and Daniel’s heart was not a whit lighter, as he slowly descended the pulpit steps.

It was getting on for noon before Jessica followed him, bringing his dinner with her in a little basket. Her eyes were red with tears, and she was very quiet while he ate with a poor appetite the food she set before him. He felt reluctant to ask after her mother; but when the meal was finished Jessica drew near to him, and took hold of his hand in both her own.

“Mr. Daniel,” she said, very sorrowfully, “when mother awoke this morning I told her everything about Jesus Christ, and God, and heaven; and she knew it all before! Before I was born, she said!”

“Ah!” ejaculated Daniel, but not in a tone of surprise; only because Jessica paused and looked mournfully into his face.

“Yes,” continued Jessica, shaking her head hopelessly, “she knew about it, and she never told me; never! She never spoke of God at all, only when she was cursing. I don’t know now anything that’ll make her a good woman. I thought that if she only heard what I said she’d love God, but she only laughed at me, and said it’s an old story. I don’t know what can be done for her now.”

Jessica’s tears were falling fast again, and Daniel did not know how to comfort her. There was little hope, he knew, of a woman so enslaved by drunkenness being brought back again to religion and God. “If the minister could only see her!” said Jessica. “He speaks as if he had seen God, and talked to him sometimes; and she’d be sure to believe him. I don’t know how to say the right things.”

“No, no!” answered Daniel. “She saw him on Sunday, before he had the stroke, and he talked a long time to her. No! she won’t be changed by him.”

“She’s my mother, you know,” repeated Jessica anxiously.

“Ay!” said Daniel, “and that puzzles me, Jessica; I don’t know what to do.”

“Couldn’t we pray to God,” suggested Jessica, again, “now, before we go on any farther?”

“Maybe it would be the best thing to do,” agreed Daniel, rising from his chair and kneeling down with Jessica beside him. At first he attempted to pray like some of the church-members at the weekly prayer-meeting, in set and formal phrases; but he felt that if he wished to obtain any real blessing he must ask for it in simple and childlike words, as if speaking face to face with his Heavenly Father; and this was the prayer he made, after freeing himself from the ceremonial etiquette of the prayer-meetings:

“Lord, thou knowest that Jessica’s mother is come back, and what a drunken and disorderly woman she is, and we don’t know what to do with her, and the minister cannot give us his advice. Sometimes I’m afraid I love my money too much yet, but, Lord, if it’s that, or anything else that’s hard in my heart, so as to hinder me from doing what the Saviour, Jesus Christ, would do if he was in my place, I pray thee to take it away, and make me see clearly what my Christian duty is. Dear Lord, I beseech thee, keep both me and Jessica from evil.”

Daniel rose from his knees a good deal relieved and lightened in spirit. He had simply, with the heart of a child, laid his petition before God; and now he felt that it was God’s part to direct him. Jessica herself seemed brighter, for if the matter had been laid in God’s hands she felt that it was certain to come out all right in the end.

They went back to their work in the chapel, and though it was melancholy to remember that their own minister would be absent from the pulpit on the Sunday which was drawing near, they felt satisfied with the thought that God knew all, and was making all things work together for the good of those who loved him.