A boy with two fathers needn't feel starved
about the heart, need he, now?"

"I suppose not," said Ronald.

"He need not, of course," said Father John. "I'll say a bit of a prayer
for you to the Heavenly Father, and I know that sore feeling will go out
of your heart. I know it, Ronald; for He has promised to answer the
prayers of those who trust in Him. But now I want to talk to you about
something else. I guess, somehow, that the next best person to your
father to come to see you now is your little friend Connie."

"Yes, yes!" said Ronald. "I've missed her dreadful. Mrs. Anderson is
sweet, and Nurse Charlotte very kind, and I'm beginning not to be quite
so nervous about fire and smoke and danger. It's awful to be frightened.
I'll have to tell my father when he comes back how bad I've been and how
unlike him. But if I can't get him just now--and I'm not going to be
unpatient--I want Connie, 'cos she understands."

"Of course she understands," said the preacher. "I will try and get her
for you."

"But why can't she come back?"

"She can't."

"But why--why?"

"That is another thing I can't tell you."

"And I am not to be unpatient," said Ronald.

"You're to be patient--it's a big lesson--it mostly takes a lifetime to
get it well learned. But somehow, when it is learned, then there's
nothing else left to learn."

Ronald's eyes were so bright and so dark that the preacher felt he had
said enough for the present. He bent down over the boy.

"The God above bless thee, child," he said; "and if you have power and
strength to say a little prayer for Connie, do. She will come back when
the Heavenly Father wills it. Good-bye, Ronald."

CHAPTER XX.

CAUGHT AGAIN.

When Connie awoke the next morning, it was to see the ugly face of Agnes
bending over her.

"Stylites is to 'ome," she said briefly. "Yer'd best look nippy and come
into the kitchen and 'ave yer brekfus'."

"Oh!" said Connie.

"You'll admire Stylites," continued Agnes; "he's a wery fine man. Now
come along--but don't yer keep him waiting."

Connie had not undressed. Agnes poured a little water into a cracked
basin for her to wash her face and hands, and showed her a comb, by no
means specially inviting, with which she could comb out her pretty hair.
Then, again enjoining her to "look slippy," she left the room.

In the kitchen a big breakfast was going on. A quantity of bacon was
frizzling in a pan over a great fire; and Freckles, the bo