For Jem had told her one Sunday, when, with her mother's permission, he had walked home from the evening service with her, what a different man he had been since one particular day.
"I was going down a street near home," he had said, "when some people came along singin' somethin' which I thought sounded very swinging and pretty, and I stopped to listen. They marched along slowly, half-a-dozen of 'em carryin' a banner in front of them, with the words in large letters on it, 'Come to the hall at 7 o'clock and hear the good news.' Still they went on with the singin', and I got curious to know what their good news was.
"'Ye must be born again, again, Ye must be born again, again; I verily, verily, say unto you, Ye must be born again!'
"On it went with a swingin' sort of roll, and I wondered, and followed on in spite of myself. 'Seven o'clock; hear the good news!' What good news was there in being told to be born again? Nonsense! this warn't any good news as I could see. I'd a deal sooner they'd have told me where I could ha' got a bit more work. That's what would ha' been good news to me, I thought. But I went with 'em, for all that; and the end of it all was, that I _was_ born again! That very night I got into a new sort o' man. I left all the old things far away behind--'as far as the east is from the west,' the man who preached said, and I got instead such a white robe to cover me over, as made me feel whiter than the snow they sang about. And that's how I came to be different--just washed in the Blood of the Lamb!"
"I know what that means too," Meg had answered softly.
"I knew you did," he had said. And then they did not speak again till they parted at the Hall gates.
"So, though I'm naught but a workman, you can put up with me, Meg?" he asked, the day before he was going away, and the repairs were finished.
[Illustration: "Dickie," she whispered, as Jem paused, "don't yer like to hear about Jesus? That's the Good Shepherd what I've told you about, as loves the little lambs."--p.38.]
And she answered by putting her hand into his.
"One thing I can promise you," he said: "that as long as God gives me strength I'll work for you, Meg!"
"And after that I'll work for _you_!" she answered, while two tears glittered in her eyes.