“I should like to find a Bible type if I could, but I’m afraid that I am too stupid,” said Amy.
“You and me, we’ll try together,” cried Elsie, laying her plump dimpled hand on that of her sister.
“Ah! you think that union is strength, Pussie!” cried Lucius; “and that you two youngest of the party will together be a match for any one of the rest.”
Little Elsie’s brain had now been quite long enough on the stretch, and after jumping upon her mother’s knee to give her “a good tight kiss,” the child ran off to play with her Noah’s Ark. The family then dispersed to various parts of the house, soon to reassemble at the cheerful sound of the dinner-bell.
After Mrs. Temple had started for church, Lucius, Agnes and Amy took up their Bibles to search in them for types, while little Elsie amused herself with a book of Scripture pictures. Dora went to the room called the study, in which the children usually learned their lessons in the morning, and amused themselves in the evening, and in which they kept their workboxes and desks, and most of their books. Dora found no one in the study, and sauntered up to the side table, covered with green cloth, on which stood her neat little workbox.
“Of course I am not going to do one stitch of my embroidery to-day, because this is Sunday,” said Dora to herself. “But there can be no harm in just looking at my pretty pattern, and seeing whether it is likely to do for the inner curtains and veil.”
Dora opened the box, and took out the pattern which lay on the neatly-folded piece of linen which her mother had given to her just before the twins had gone up-stairs to bed. Dora admired her own pattern, which was realty drawn out with some skill, but she saw that it was not quite perfect. Her pencil lay close at hand; Dora could not, or did not, resist the temptation to put in a few touches to this and that part of the drawing.
“I wonder how I should arrange the colors,” thought Dora; “I wish that I had more scarlet in my reel, and I think that my blue skein is too dark; Agnes has some sky-blue sewing silk, I know. Perhaps that would be better, or both shades might have a pretty effect, mixed with the scarlet and purple.”
Dora took out her reels and skeins, and placed them beside her pattern, and tried to imagine the effect of the different combination of color. Would it be well for the cherubim to be worked in purple or blue, or entirely in thread of gold, like their wings? Dora was inclined to think the last plan best, only gold thread is so stiff, and difficult to manage.
“I shall never go to rest till I have made up my mind about this,” muttered Dora to herself, “and how can I decide what will be best till I try? And why should I not try?” Dora, with her colored silks before her, was, like Eve, looking at the forbidden fruit, and listening to the voice of the Tempter, who would persuade her that evil was good.