"Then came his waking up from that long trance of sin, our meeting with that old lady in the street--(you remember, Tom), and the tearful look which she bent on him, when in reply to some remark of mine, he exclaimed,
"Then, how that look had haunted him, tortured him, by day and night; how it had wakened to new life all the buried memories of childhood--his mother's prayers and tears, and dying words; and how, after wrestling with it, through deeper depths of sin than any into which he had yet plunged, he had yielded to the holy spell, and that 'Jesus Christ' had now become to him, with penitential utterance, 'My Lord and my God.'
"Tom--there was not a dry eye in that church when Jack got through, no--not even mine, for I caught the infection (I might as well own it); I felt as wicked as old King Herod; and all day to-day--it is a rainy day, though, and I suppose, when the sun shines out, I shall feel better, I have not been able to get that sermon out of my mind. I don't believe in it, of course not; hang me if I know what _does_ ail me; I am inclined to think it is a bad fit of indigestion. I must have a game at billiards. Write me.
"How you grow, Charley," said John, tossing him up on his shoulder, and walking up to the looking-glass. "It seems but yesterday that you lay wrapped up in your blanket a-board Captain Lucas' ship with your thumb in your mouth (that unfailing sign of a good-natured baby), thinking of nothing at all; and now here you are six years' old to-day--think of that man? and I dare say you expect a birth-day present."
"There, now; that is to the point. I like an honest boy. What will you have, Charley?"
"Something pretty for my mamma," said the loving little heart.
"Better still," said John; "but mamma won't take presents. I have tried her a great many times. There is one I want very much to make her, but she always says 'No.'" And John glanced at Gertrude.
"Mind what you say," whispered his sister. "He might chance to repeat it to his mother."
"So much the better, Gertrude. Then she will be sure to think of me at least one minute.
"But, Charley, tell me what _you_ want. I would like to get you something for _yourself_."
"I want my papa," said Charley, resolutely. "Tommy Fritz keeps saying that I 'haven't got any papa.' _Haven't_ I got a papa, cousin John?"