her cares and anxieties, and the day's needs
for them all, sure that he would understand and answer. Every one was
remembered--the absent head of the family and those present; the young
man worshiping with them, that he might be a true man and a good soldier
of Jesus Christ; and at the close, the little lad going away this
morning, that he might be kept from all harm and from all evil thoughts
and deeds. The simple beauty of the words, the music in the voice, and
the tender, trustful feeling that breathed through the prayer awakened
in Ranald's heart emotions and longings he had never known before, and
he rose from his knees feeling how wicked and how cruel a thing it would
be to cause one of these little ones to stumble.

After the worship was over, Hughie seized his Scotch bonnet and rushed
for the jumper, and in a few minutes his mother had all the space not
taken up by him and Ranald packed with blankets and baskets.

"Jessie thinks that even great shanty-men like you and Don and Hughie
will not object to something better than bread and pork."

"Indeed, we will not," said Ranald, heartily.

Then Hughie suddenly remembered that he was actually leaving home, and
climbing out of the jumper, he rushed at his mother.

"Oh, mother, good by!" he cried.

His mother stooped and put her arms about him. "Good by, my darling,"
she said, in a low voice; "I trust you to be a good boy, and, Hughie,
don't forget your prayers."

Then came to Hughie, for the first time, the thought that had been in
the mother's heart all the morning, that when night came he would lie
down to sleep, for the first time in his life, without the nightly story
and her good-night kiss.

"Mother," whispered the little lad, holding her tight about the neck,
"won't you come, too? I don't think I like to go away."

He could have said no more comforting word, and the mother, whose heart
had been sore enough with her first parting from her boy, was more than
glad to find that the pain was not all on her side; so she kissed him
again, and said, in a cheery voice: "Now have a good time. Don't trouble
Ranald too much, and bring me back some sugar." Her last word braced the
lad as nothing else could.

"Oh, mother, I'll bring you heaps!" he cried, and with the vision of
what he would bring home again shining vividly before his eyes, he got
through the parting without tears, and was soon speeding down the lane
beside Ranald, in the jumper.

The mother sto