seems to me that she could have done it."

"Will you tell me who the people are?"

"It is a set of boys for whom nobody cares," he said, speaking sadly;
"it hardly seems possible that there could ever have been a time when
anybody cared for them, though I suppose their mothers did when they
were little fellows."

Thus spoke the ignorant young man,--ignorant of the depths to which sin
will sink human nature, but rich in the memory of mother-love.

"I think of my sister Ester in connection with them," he said, speaking
apologetically, "because she was peculiarly interested in wild young
fellows like them; she thought they might be reached,--that there might
be ways invented for reaching them, such as had not been yet. She had
plans, and they were good ones. I thought so then, little fellow that I
was, and I think so now, only nobody is at work carrying them out; and I
wonder sometimes if Ester could have been needed in heaven half as much
as she is needed on earth. She used to talk to me a great deal about
what might be done. I think now that she wanted to put me in the way of
taking up some of the work that she would have done; but she mistook her
material. I can't do it."

"Are you sure? You are young yet, and besides, you may be doing more
than you think. Couldn't I help? What is there that needs doing for
these particular young men?"

"Everything!" he said, excitedly. "If you should see them you would get
a faint idea of it. They come occasionally down to the Sabbath-school at