, as the eager eyes
were raised to his awaiting his answer.

"Oh _dear me_!" she answered in consternation, "I should be flustered
all out of my head entirely. I never spoke to such a man in my life. I
shouldn't know what to say at all, and it wouldn't do any good if I did.
Jim, he said if you couldn't do it nobody need try."

"Jim overestimates my powers in this direction as in all others,"
Theodore said, smiling. "I have perhaps less influence with Mr. Hastings
than with any other person, and I haven't the slightest hopes that--"
And here he stopped and listened to his thoughts. "After all," they said
to him, "perhaps you misjudge the man--perhaps he really does not think
what an injury he is doing to those boys simply by his good-natured
carelessness. Suppose you should go to him and state the case plainly?
You really have some curiosity to see how he will meet the question;
besides, it will at least be giving him a chance to do what is right if
the trouble arises from carelessness; and, moreover, how can you be
justified in disappointing this poor old mother? At least it would do no
harm to gratify her, if it did no good."

"Well," he said aloud, "I will make the attempt, although I am afraid it
will be a failure; but we will try it. I will see Mr. Hastings at the
earliest possible moment, and will do what I can; but, in the meantime,
are you doing _all_ you can for your boy? Do you take him to God in
prayer every day?"

The mother's eyes drooped, a little flush crept into the faded cheek, a
little silence fell between them, until at last she said with low and
faltering voice:

"That's a thing I never learned to do. I don't know how to do it for
myself."

"Then you must remember that there is one all-important thing which you
have left undone. My mother's prayer saved me from a drunkard's life. I
know of no more powerful aid than that."

Very grave and sorrowful looked the poor mother; evidently she knew
nothing about the compassionate Savior, who was ready and willing to
help her bear her burden. Well for her that the young man in whom she
trusted leaned on an arm stronger than his own. The mother had one more
request to make of him.

"Could you _possibly_ go to see my Tommy?" she asked, with glistening
eyes. "If you only could know him, and kind of coax him, he would take a
notion to you like enough, and then he would go through fire and water
to please you; he's always so when he takes notions, Tommy is