‘There!’ she exclaimed, ‘I have made my choice; yet—wait! I will mark my place, and then pass the book to Bab—I mean, Barbie.’ She had a wild summer rose in her bosom. She pulled off a petal, touched it with her tongue, and put the leaf at the spot she had selected. Then she shut the Bible with a snap, laughed, and handed it to her sister. ‘I need not shut my eyes,’ said Barbara; ‘I will look you full in the face, Eve.’ Then she took the book and felt for the end pages that she might light on an Epistle; just as she saw that Eve had groped for an early part of the book that she might have a story from the times of the patriarchs. She did not know that Eve in handing her the book had not turned it; consequently she held the Bible reversed. Barbara held a buttercup in her hand. She was so accustomed to use her fingers, that it was strange to her to have nothing to employ them. As they came through the meadows she had picked a few flowers, broken the stalks and thrown them away. There remained in her hand but one buttercup. Barbara placed the Bible on her lap; she, like Eve, had seated herself on the rocky ledge. Then she opened near what she believed to be the end of the book, and laid the golden cup on a page. Eve leaned towards her and looked, and uttered an exclamation. ‘What is it?’ asked Barbara, and looked also. Behold! the golden flower of Barbara was shining on the pink petal of Eve’s rose. ‘We have chosen the same place. Now, Barbie, what do you say to this? Is it a chance, or are we going to learn our fate, which is bound up together, from the passage Mr. Jasper is about to read?’ ‘There is no mystery in the matter,’ said Barbara quietly; ‘you did not turn the book when you gave it to me, and it naturally opened where your flower lay.’ ‘Go on, Mr. Jasper,’ exhorted Eve. But the young man seemed ill-disposed to obey. ‘Yes,’ said Barbara; ‘begin. We are ready.’ Then Jasper began to read:— ‘Jacob went on his journey, and came into the land of the people of the east. And he looked, and behold a well in a field, and, lo, there were flocks of sheep lying by it.’ ‘I am glad we are going to have this story,’ said Eve; ‘I like it. It is a pretty one. Jacob came to that house of Laban just as you, Mr. Babb, have come to Morwell.’ Jasper read on:— ‘And Laban had two daughters: now the name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. Leah was tender eyed; but Rachel was beautiful and well-favoured.’ Barbara was listening, but as she listened she looked away into the blue distance over the vast gulf of the Tamar valley towards the Cornish moors, the colour of cobalt, with a salmon sky above them. Something must at that moment have struck the mind of Jasper, for he paused in his reading, and his eyes sought hers. She said in a hard tone, ‘Go on.’