"Yes," replied Mr. Ellet, coming to the rescue; "but if only _one_ heathen had been saved, there would be joy forever in heaven. He who saveth a soul from death, you know, hideth a multitude of sins. I think I spoke a word in season, the other day, which has resulted in one admission, at least, to our church."
"It is to be hoped the new member will prove steadfast," said the well-meaning but hypochondriac brother Clark, with another groan. "Many a hopeful convert goes back to the world, and the last state of that soul is worse than the first. Dreadful, dreadful. I am heartsick, brother Ellet."
"Come," said Ruth's father, tapping him on the shoulder; "dinner is ready, will you sit down with us? First salmon of the season, green peas, boiled fowl, oysters, &c.; your country parishioners don't feed you that way, I suppose."
"N--o," said brother Clark, "no; there is no verse in the whole Bible truer, or more dishonored in the observance, than this, 'The laborer is worthy of his hire.' I'll stay to dinner, brother Ellet. You have, I bless God, a warm heart and a liberal one; your praise is in all the churches."
A self satisfied smile played round the lips of Ruth's father, at this tribute to his superior sanctity; and, seating himself at the well-spread table, he uttered an unusually lengthy grace.
"Some more supper, please, Mamma," vainly pleaded little Nettie.
Ruth had found employment. Ruth's MSS. had been accepted at the office of "The Standard." Yes, an article of hers was to be published in the very next issue. The remuneration was not what Ruth had hoped, but it was at least a _beginning_, a stepping-stone. What a pity that Mr. Lescom's (the editor's) rule was, not to pay a contributor, even after a piece was accepted, until it was printed--and Ruth so short of funds. Could she hold out to work so hard, and fare so rigidly? for often there was only a crust left at night; but, God be thanked, she should now _earn_ that crust! It was a pity that oil was so dear, too, because most of her writing must be done at night, when Nettie's little prattling voice was hushed, and her innumerable little wants forgotten in sleep. Yes, it _was_ a pity that good oil was so dear, for the cheaper kind crusted so soon on the wick, and Ruth's eyes, from excessive weeping, had become quite tender, and often very painful. Then it would be so mortifying should a mistake occur in one of her articles. She must write very legibly, for type-setters were sometimes sad bunglers, making people accountable for words that would set Worcester's or Webster's hair on end; but, poor things, _they_ worked hard too--they had _their_ sorrows, thinking, long into the still night, as they scattered the types, more of their dependent wives and children, than of the orthography of a word, or the rhetoric of a sentence.