“Can we all get to the pallis?” she asked, with a soft awe in her tone.
“Yes, there are many things to do—you will see what Christiana and Mercy did. And if you love the Lord Jesus and pray to him—”
Poor Dil was again conscience smitten. Only this morning she had said praying wasn’t any good. She glanced up through tears,—
“’Pears as if I couldn’t ever get to understand. I wasn’t smart at school—”
“But you are smart,” interposed Bess. “An’ now we’ve got the book we’ll find just how Christiana went. There’s only six months left. You’ll surely be back by April?”
“I shall be back.” His heart smote him. He was a coward after all. Ah, could he ever undertake any of the Master’s business?
“Do you remember a hymn an old lady sang for you once?” he said, glad of even this faltering way out. “I have been learning the words.”
“’Bout everlasting spring?” and Bess’s eyes were alight. “Oh, do please sing it! I’m in such an awful hurry for spring to come. Sometimes my breath gets so short, as if I reely couldn’t wait.”
Dil raised her eyes with a slow, beseeching movement. He pushed a chair beside the wagon, and held Bess’s small hands, that were full of leaping pulses.
The sweet old hymn, almost forgotten amid the clash of modern music. Ah, there was some one who would love and care for Dil in her desolation—his grandmother. He would write to her. Then he began, and at the first note the children were enraptured:—