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When at last Martha permitted her new friends to remove her, she was led by Miss Westlake to the not far distant house of a lady friend, whose sympathies with the suffering, the sorrowful, and the fallen were so keen that she had given up all and gone to dwell in the midst of them, in the sanguine hope of rescuing some. To this lady’s care Martha was in the meantime committed, and then Tom and his sister went their way.

Their way led them to a very different scene not far from the same region.

“We’re rather late,” remarked Tom, consulting his watch as they turned into a narrow street.

“Not too late, I think,” said his sister.

“I hope not, for I should be sorry to go in upon them at dinner-time.”

They were not too late. David Butts, whom they were about to visit, was a dock-labourer. In early youth he had been a footman, in which capacity he had made the acquaintance of the Westlakes’ nursery-maid, and, having captivated her heart, had carried her off in triumph and married her.

David had not been quite as steady as might have been desired. He had acquired, while in service, a liking for beer, which had degenerated into a decided craving for brandy, so that he naturally came down in the world, until, having lost one situation after another, he finally, with his poor wife and numerous children, was reduced to a state bordering on beggary. But God, who never forgets His fallen creatures, came to this man’s help when the tide with him was at its lowest ebb. A humble-minded city missionary was sent to him. He was the means of bringing him to Jesus. The Saviour, using one of the man’s companions as an instrument, brought him to a temperance meeting, and there an eloquent, though uneducated, speaker flung out a rope to the struggling man in the shape of a blue ribbon. David Butts seized it, and held on for life. His wife gladly sewed a bit of it on every garment he possessed–including his night-shirt–and the result was that he got to be known at the docks as a steady, dependable man, and found pretty constant employment.

How far Matilda Westlake was instrumental in this work of rescue we need not stop to tell. It is enough to say that she had a hand in it–for her heart yearned towards the nurse, who had been very kind to her when she was a little child.

Jack Frost and his sons, with their usual presumption, were in close attendance on the Westlakes when they knocked at David’s door, and when it was opened they rudely brushed past the visitors and sought to enter, but a gush of genial heat from a roaring fire effectually stopped Jack and the major on the threshold, and almost killed them. Colonel Wind, however, succeeded in bursting in, overturning a few light articles, causing the flames to sway, leap, and roar wildly, and scattering ashes all over the room, but his triumph was short-lived. The instant the visitors entered he was locked out, and the door shut against him with a bang.

“It do come rather awkward, sir, ‘avin’ no entrance ‘all,” said David, as he made the door fast. “If we even ‘ad a porch it would ‘elp to keep the wind and snow hout, but I ain’t complainin’, sir. I’ve on’y too good reason to be thankful.”

“Dear Miss Matilda,” said the old nurse, dusting a wooden chair with her apron, and beaming all over with joy, “it’s good for sore eyes to see you. Don’t mind the child’n, miss, an’ do sit down near the fire. I’m sure your feet must be wet–such dreadful weather.”

“No, indeed, nurse,–thank you,” said Miss Westlake, laughing as she sat down, “my feet are not a bit wet. The frost is so hard that everything is quite dry.”