“Oh, it's very easy. You'll see.” The child found the chapter and verse
in the Bible and read, with her finger on the line. Eloise looked over
and read with her. Thus they went through all the verses for the day,
then Jewel began to give the page and line to be read in the text-book.
This volume was small and agreeable to handle, the India paper pleasant
to the girl's dainty touch. According to the child's request, she read
aloud the lines which were called for.
“That's all,” said Jewel at last. “Oh cousin Eloise, it's just lovely
and easy to get the lesson with you,” she added gratefully.
Eloise made no response. Her eye had been caught by a statement on the
page before her, and she read on in silence.
Jewel waited a minute and then, seeing that her cousin was absorbed, she
laid down the Quarterly and took up her doll and sat still, watching the
pretty profile, undisturbed by doubts as to what her cousin might think
of the book she held, and full of utter confidence that He who healeth
all our diseases would minister to her through its pages.
At last Eloise again became conscious of her surroundings. She turned to
her companion, a skeptical comment on her lips, but she suppressed
the words at sight of the innocent, expectant face. She certainly had
nothing to give this child better than what she already possessed.
“You can read it any time when you feel sorry, cousin Eloise, that and
my Bible too. Mother always does.”
“Does she ever feel sorry?”
“Sometimes; but it can't last where the Bible is.”
“I never saw that the Bible had anything to do with us,” said Eloise.
“Why--ee!” Jewel suddenly dropped Anna Belle and again took up the
Bible.
“What do you think I opened to?” holding the verse with her finger as
she looked up. Then she read, “'If ye love them that love you what thank
have ye?' Now isn't that something to do with you and grandpa?”
“I don't see how I can love people who don't choose to be lovable,”
returned Eloise. “What's the use of pretending?”
“But then,” said the child, “the trouble is that everything that isn't
love is hate.”
Her visitor raised her eyebrows. “Ah! I should have to think about
that,” she returned.
“Yes, you'd better,” agreed Jewel. Then she turned to the Psalms and
read the ninety-first.
When she had finished she looked up at her cousin, an earnest
questioning in her eyes.
“That is very beautiful,” said Eloise. “I never heard it before. How
well you read it, Jewel.”
“Yes,” replied the child. “It's so much easier to read things when you
know them by heart.” Then she turned to the Twenty-third Psalm and read
it.
“Yes, I've heard that one. It's beautiful of course, but I never thought
of its having anything to do with us.” Eloise was watching her cousin
curiously. It seemed too strange for belief that a healthy child of her
age should be taking a vital interest in the Bible and endeavoring to
prove a position from its pages.
When the girl finally rose to go she turned at the door:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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