"A kind Lady is goin to Adopt us it is
a Grate ways off so do not Hunt good by. TIM."

Now all was ready. No; one thing more. Timothy had been met in the
street by a pretty young girl a few weeks before. The love of God was
smiling in her heart, the love of children shining in her eyes; and she
led him, a willing captive, into a mission Sunday-school near by. And so
much in earnest was the sweet little teacher, and so hungry for any sort
of good tidings was the starved little pupil, that Timothy "got
religion" then and there, as simply and naturally as a child takes its
mother's milk. He was probably in a state of crass ignorance regarding
the Thirty-nine Articles; but it was the "engrafted word," of which the
Bible speaks, that had blossomed in Timothy's heart; the living seed had
always been there, waiting for some beneficent fostering influence; for
he was what dear Charles Lamb would have called a natural
"kingdom-of-heavenite." Thinking, therefore, of Miss Dora's injunction
to pray over all the extra-ordinary affairs of life and as many of the
ordinary ones as possible, he hung his tattered straw hat on the
bedpost, and knelt beside Gay's crib with this whispered prayer:--

"_Our Father who art in heaven, please help me to find a mother for Gay,
one that she can call Mamma, and another one for me, if there's enough,
but not unless. Please excuse me for taking away the clothes-basket,
which does not exactly belong to us; but if I do not take it, dear
heavenly Father, how will I get Gay to the railroad? And if I don't take
the Japanese umbrella she will get freckled, and nobody will adopt her.
No more at present, as I am in a great hurry. Amen._"

He put on his hat, stooped over the sleeping baby, and took her in his