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Page 62
"I'm Meg. You don't know me. I ain't fit for your fine Christian people
to touch; they won't let their little children speak to me."
"Well?" he said, nervously, for she paused.
"Well? You're a preacher. I want to know about Him they've been singing
of, I came in to hear the singing. I like it."
"I--I don't quite understand you," began the minister. "You surely have
heard of Jesus Christ."
"Yes," her eyes softened, "somebody used to tell me; it was mother; we
lived in the country. I wasn't what I am now. I want to know if he can
put me back again. What if I should tell him I was going to be
different? Would he hear me, do you suppose?"
Somehow the preacher's scholarly self-possession failed him. He felt ill
at ease, standing there with the woman's fixed black eyes upon him.
"Why, yes; he always forgives a repentant sinner."
"Repentant sinner." She repeated the words musingly. "I don't understand
all these things. I've forgotten most all about it. I want to know.
Couldn't I come in some way with the children and be learnt 'em? I
wouldn't make any trouble."
There was something almost like a child in her voice just then, almost
as earnest and as pure. The preacher took out his handkerchief and wiped
his face; then he changed his hat awkwardly from hand to hand.
"Why, why, really, we have no provision in our Sabbath school for cases
like this: we have been meaning to establish an institution of a
missionary character, but the funds cannot be raised just yet. I am
sorry; I don't know but--"
"It's no matter!"
Meg turned sharply away, her hands dropping lifelessly; she moved toward
the door. They were alone now in the church, they two.
The minister's pale cheek flushed; he stepped after her.
"Young woman!"
She stopped, her face turned from him.
"I will send you to some of the city missionaries, or I will go with you
to the Penitents' Retreat. I should like to help you. I--"
He would have exhorted her to reform as kindly as he knew how; he felt
uncomfortable at letting her go so; he remembered just then who washed
the feet of his Master with her tears. But she would not listen. She
turned from him, and out into the storm, some cry on her lips,--it might
have been:--
"There ain't nobody to help me. I _was_ going to be better!"
She sank down on the snow outside, exhausted by the racking cough which
the air had again brought on.
The sexton found her there in the shadow, when he locked the church
doors.
"Meg! you here? What ails you?"
"_Dying_, I suppose!"
The sight of her touched the man, she lying there alone in the snow; he
lingered, hesitated, thought of his own warm home, looked at her again.
If a friendly hand should save the creature,--he had heard of such
things. Well? But how could he take her into his respectable home? What
would people say?--the sexton of the Temple! He had a little wife there
too, pure as the snow upon the ground to-night. Could he bring them
under the same roof?
"Meg!" he said, speaking in his nervous way, though kindly, "you _will_
die here. I'll call the police and let them take you where it's warmer."
But she crawled to her feet again.
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