"I don't know all the reasons," said Nettie, after a thoughtful pause, "but I suppose one was, because he wouldn't act in a way to make people believe he had given up praying. He wanted to show them that he meant to pray, whether they forbade it or not." "Go on," said Susie, sharply, "I want to know how he felt when the lions bit him." "They didn't bite him; God wouldn't let them touch him. They crouched down and kept as _still_, all night; and in the morning when the king came to look, there was Daniel, safe!" "Oh my!" said Sate, drawing a long, quivering sigh of relief; "wasn't that just splendid!" "How do you know it is true?" said skeptical Susie, looking as though she was prepared not to believe anything. "I know it because God said it, Susie; he put it in the Bible." "I didn't ever hear Him say it," said Susie with a frown. A laugh from Norm at that moment gave Nettie her first knowledge of him as a listener. Her cheeks grew red, and she would have liked to slip away into a more quiet corner but Sate was in haste to hear just what the king said, and what Daniel said, and all about it, and the story went on steadily, Daniel's character for true bravery shining out all the more strongly, perhaps, because Nettie suspected herself of being a coward, and not liking Norm to laugh at her Bible stories. As for Norm, he knew he was a coward; he knew he had done in his life dozens of things to make his mother cry; not because he was so anxious to do them, nor because he feared a den of lions if he refused, but simply because some of the fellows would laugh at him if he did. That Sabbath day had been a memorable one to the Decker family in some respects; at least to part of it. Nettie had taken the little girls with her to Sabbath-school, and then to church. Mrs. Smith had given her a cordial invitation to sit in their seat, but it was not a very large seat, and when Job and his wife, and Sarah Ann and Jerry were all there, as they were apt to be, there was just room for Nettie without the little girls; so she went with them to the seat directly under the choir gallery where very few sat. It was comfortable enough; she could see the minister distinctly, and though she had to stretch out her neck to see the choir, she could hear their sweet voices; and surely that was enough. All went smoothly until the sermon was concluded. Sate sat quite still, and if she did not listen to the sermon, listened to her own thoughts and troubled no one.