“Why it’s Mr. Kimper!  Are you working here?”

“Only to finish a job that was promised for this afternoon, Mrs. Prency.”

“Where’s Larry?”

“He felt very badly,” said Sam, “an’ he wanted to go home, an’ I promised to finish his work for him.  I believe this is your job, ma’am?” said he, holding the shoe in the air for an instant.

“Yes,” said the judge’s wife.  “I will sit down for a moment, if you will allow me, while you finish it.”

“Certainly, ma’am,” said Sam, plying the needle and awl vigorously.  He looked up only for a second at a time during the next few moments, but what he saw impressed him very favorably.  Mrs. Prency was not a young woman, but apparently she had a clear conscience and a good digestion, for she sat with an entirely satisfied and cheerful air, with her shoulders against the back of the chair, as if it were a real pleasure to rest against something, while her cheeks flushed, probably from the exertion of a rapid walk from some other portion of the town.  Like any other woman of good health, good character, and good principles, she was a pleasing object to look upon, and the ex-convict looked at her as often as he dared, with undisguised and respectful admiration.  But suddenly the uplifting of his eyes was stopped by a remark from the lady herself, as she said,—­

“Sam—­Mr. Kimper, I’ve heard some remarks about your speech at the experience-meeting the other night.  You know I was there myself; you remember I spoke to you as you came out?”

“Mrs. Prency, I know it; an’ that isn’t all; I’ll remember it just as long as I live.  I’d rather have been the dyin’ thief on the cross than said what I said in that church that night, but I was asked to do it, an’ the more I thought about it the more I thought I couldn’t say no.  But I didn’t know what else to say.”

“You did quite right, Mr. Kimper:  you spoke like a real, true, honest man.  If it’s any comfort to know it, I can tell you that my husband, the judge, thinks as I do.  I told him what you said,—­I remembered it all, word for word,—­and he said to me,—­these are exactly his words,—­’I believe that is an honest man, and that he is going to remain an honest man.’”

Sam bent over the shoe a little closer, and said, in a faint voice, as if he were talking to himself,—­

“What Judge Prency says about human natur ort to be true.  If there’s any other man in this county that’s had more opportunities of knowin’ all about it, I don’t know who he can be.”

There was silence for a moment or two.  Sam quickened his labors upon the shoe, and the lady bent her gaze closely upon the shoemaker.  At last she said,—­

“Mr. Kimper, don’t mistake the meaning of what I am going to ask you.  I am a member of the church, myself, and I have as hearty an interest in you and sympathy for you as the best friend you have.  But I want to ask you one thing, merely out of curiosity.  Has any one questioned you, since, about what you said that evening?”