"What for?" asked mother, who had come in and was listening.
"It's fitting," grannie said. "God's blessing has been on us here, and He has cared for us; and we'd ought to thank Him, and ask for the same in the new home too."
"Well, I'm busy just now," mother said, and she went off quick and didn't come back.
But father got up, and brought the big Bible to grannie. "I'm not religious like you, mother," he said; "but you shall have your will—if it's a pleasure. Only it's you that must do it, not I."
She didn't press him for more. She just turned over the leaves, and found the 103rd Psalm, and read it aloud. And I couldn't help noticing how her dear face grew bright, with a sort of inward glow, as if God Himself was speaking to her heart.
"It's full of mercy and loving-kindness—full—full," she said at the end. "Miles, I'd give anything—"
"What for, mother?" said he, and his voice was husky.
"If you'd be willing to have God for such a Friend as He's been to me," said she.
And then she made us kneel down—father and Asaph and me, and she prayed. How she did pray, thanking God, and asking Him to keep us from dangers, and speaking the Name of Jesus so lovingly, and seeming just as if she had Someone just close beside her, listening! And hadn't she?
But all at once she stopped, and then went on, and stopped again, and seemed confused. And then she said "Phœbe." And the next moment she fell down heavily, all in a heap, with no life in her, as it were.