When Jessica came to the street into which the court where she lived opened, she saw an unusual degree of excitement among the inhabitants, a group of whom were gathered about a tall gentleman whom she recognized in an instant to be the minister. She elbowed her way through the midst of them, and the minister’s face brightened as she presented herself before him. He followed her up the low entry, across the squalid court, through the stable, empty of the donkeys just then, up the creaking rounds of the ladder, and into the miserable loft where the tiles were falling in and the broken window-panes were stuffed with rags and paper. Near to the old rusty stove, which served as a grate when there was any fire, there was a short board laid across some bricks, and upon this the minister took his seat, while Jessica sat upon the floor before him.

“Jessica,” he said, sadly, “is this where you live?”

“Yes,” she answered; “but we’d a nicer room than this when I was a fairy and mother played at the theatre; we shall be better off when I’m grown up, if I’m pretty enough to play like her.”

“My child,” he said, “I’m come to ask your mother to let you go to school in a pleasant place down in the country. Will she let you go?” “No,” answered Jessica; “mother says she’ll never let me learn to read, or go to church; she says it would make me good for nothing. But please, sir, she doesn’t know any thing about your church, it’s such a long way off, and she hasn’t found me out yet. She always gets very drunk of a Sunday.”

The child spoke simply, and as if all she said was a matter of course; but the minister shuddered, and he looked through the broken window to the little patch of gloomy sky overhead.

“What can I do?” he cried mournfully, as though speaking to himself.

“Nothing, please, sir,” said Jessica, “only let me come to hear you of a Sunday, and tell me about God. If you was to give me fine clothes—like your little girls’—mother ’ud only pawn them for gin. You can’t do any thing more for me.”

“Where is your mother?” he asked.

“Out on a spree,” said Jessica. “She wont be home for a day or two. She’d not hearken to you, sir. There’s the missionary came, and she pushed him down the ladder till he was nearly killed. They used to call mother ‘the vixen’ at the theatre, and nobody durst say a word to her.”

The minister was silent for some minutes, thinking painful thoughts, for his eyes seemed to darken as he looked round the miserable room, and his face wore an air of sorrow and disappointment. At last he spoke again.

“Who is Mr. Daniel, Jessica?” he inquired.

“Oh,” she said cunningly, “he’s only a friend of mine as gives me sups of coffee. You don’t know all the folks in London, sir!”

“No,” he answered, smiling, “but does he keep a coffee-stall?”

Jessica nodded her head, but did not trust herself to speak.

“How much does a cup of coffee cost?” asked the minister.

“A full cup’s a penny,” she answered promptly; “but you can have half a cup; and there are half-penny and penny buns.”

“Good coffee and buns?” he said, with another smile.

“Prime,” replied Jessica, smacking her lips.

“Well,” continued the minister, “tell your friend to give you a full cup of coffee and a penny bun every morning, and I’ll pay for them as often as he chooses to come to me for the money.” Jessica’s face beamed with delight, but in an instant it clouded over as she recollected Daniel’s secret, and her lips quivered as she spoke her disappointed reply.

“Please, sir,” she said, “I’m sure he couldn’t come; oh! he couldn’t. It’s such a long way, and Mr. Daniel has plenty of customers. No, he never would come to you for money.”

“Jessica,” he answered, “I will tell you what I will do. I will trust you with a shilling every Sunday, if you’ll promise to give it to your friend the very first time you see him. I shall be sure to know if you cheat me.” And the keen, piercing eyes of the minister looked down into Jessica’s, and once more the tender and pitying smile returned to his face.

“I can do nothing else for you?” he said, in a tone of mingled sorrow and questioning.

“No, minister,” answered Jessica, “only tell me about God.”

“I will tell you one thing about him now,” he replied. “If I took you to live in my house with my little daughters you would have to be washed and clothed in new clothing to make you fit for it. God wanted us to go and live at home with him in heaven, but we were so sinful that we could never have been fit for it. So he sent his own Son to live among us, and die for us, to wash us from our sins, and to give us new clothing, and to make us ready to live in God’s house. When you ask God for any thing you must say, ‘For Jesus Christ’s sake.’ Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”

After these words the minister carefully descended the ladder, followed by Jessica’s bare and nimble feet, and she led him by the nearest way into one of the great thoroughfares of the city, where he said good-by to her, adding, “God bless you, my child,” in a tone which sank into Jessica’s heart.

He had put a silver sixpence into her hand to provide for her breakfast the next three mornings, and with a feeling of being very rich she returned to her miserable home.

The next morning Jessica presented herself proudly as a customer at Daniel’s stall, and paid over the sixpence in advance.

He felt a little troubled as he heard her story, lest the minister should endeavor to find him out; but he could not refuse to let the child come daily for her comfortable breakfast. If he was detected, he would promise to give up his coffee-stall rather than offend the great people of the chapel; but unless he was it would be foolish of him to lose the money it brought in week after week.