put her arms around me and wept. She was an old lady,
and I did not know her, but it seemed fitting that she should cry just
then, as it would have seemed fitting to me if at that black moment all
the people on the earth had broken into sudden wailing.

"Oh, Miss Shaw," she said, "I'm the happiest woman in the world, and I
owe my happiness to you. To-night you have converted my grandson. He's
all I have left, but he has been a wild boy, and I've prayed over him
for years. Hereafter he is going to lead a different life. He has just
given me his promise on his knees."

Her hand fumbled in her purse.

"I am a poor woman," she went on, "but I have enough, and I want to make
you a little present. I know how hard life is for you young students."

She pressed a bill into my fingers. "It's very little," she said,
humbly; "it is only five dollars."

I laughed, and in that exultant moment I seemed to hear life laughing
with me. With the passing of the bill from her hand to mine existence
had become a new experience, wonderful and beautiful.

"It's the biggest gift I have ever had," I told her. "This little bill
is big enough to carry my future on its back!"

I had a good meal that night, and I bought the shoes the next morning.
Infinitely more sustaining than the food, however, was the conviction
that the Lord was with me and had given me a sign of His approval. The
experience was the turning-point of my theological career. When the
money was gone I succeeded in obtaining more work from time to time--and
though the grind was still cruelly hard, I never again lost hope. The
theological school was on Bromfield Street, and we students climbed
three flights of stairs to reach our class-rooms. Through lack of proper
food I had become too weak to ascend these stairs without sitting down
once or twice to rest, and within a month after my experience with the
appreciative grandmother I was discovered during one of these resting
periods by Mrs. Barrett, the superintendent of the Woman's Foreign
Missionary Society, which had offices in our building. She stopped,
looked me over, and then invited me into her room, where she asked me
if I felt ill. I assured her that I did not. She asked a great many
additional questions and, little by little, under the womanly sympathy
of them, my reserve broke down and she finally got at the truth, which
until that hour I had succeeded in concealing. She let me leave without
much comment, but the nex