nset hours, when, seated in the door of the neat
cabin, she had joined with the old nurse and Uncle Simon in singing
those beautiful hymns they loved so well. How long it was since she
had tried to sing one! Before she was aware, she was humming, in a low
voice, the once familiar words:--

"Oh, when shall I see Jesus,
And reign with him above?
And from that flowing fountain
Drink everlasting love?"

Then, suddenly jumping over all the intervening verses, as if she, a
poor shipwrecked soul, were springing to the cable suddenly thrown out
before her, she burst out in a loud strain,--

"Whene'er you meet with trouble
And trials on your way,
Oh, cast your care on Jesus,
And don't forget to pray."

With what unction Uncle Simon used to pour forth that verse. It was to
him the grand cure-all, the panacea for every heart-trouble; and over
and over again he would sing it, always winding up in his own peculiar
fashion with a quick, jerked-out "Hallelujah! Amen."

His image rose vividly before Tidy at that moment, and, as the tears
began to roll down her cheeks, she clasped her hands over her face, and
cried, "Oh, I has forgot that. I has forgot to pray." Then, falling on
her knees, she poured forth such an earnest prayer as had never before,
perhaps, been heard in that vast solitude. Her heart was relieved by
this outpouring of her griefs to God, and she wondered that she had
allowed herself, notwithstanding her sufferings and discouragements, to
neglect such a privilege. It is so sometimes; grief is so overwhelming
that it seems to shut us away from God; but we can never find comfort
or relief until we have pierced through the clouds, and got near to his
loving ear and heart again. Tidy found this true. "And now," she said
to herself, "I WILL keep on praying until he hears me, and comes to help
me,--I am determined I will."

But perhaps, thought she, I haven't prayed the right prayer; perhaps
there's something about me that's wrong; and she cried with a loud
voice, that was echoed back again from those forest depths, "O Lord,
tell me just how to pray, that I mayn't make no mistake."

No sooner had she uttered this petition than she thought she heard a
voice, and these were its words: "Say, 'O Lord, pluck me out of the
fiery brands, and take my feet out of the miry pit, and make me stand
on the everlasting rock; and, O Lord, save my soul.'" Tidy had heard a
gre