Josie's comment on it, as Anstice closed the book, and said it was time for tea, was:
"There, you see! How well those children managed for themselves without any grown-up person to interfere with them! And we could do alone, I know we could. We don't want governesses to bother our lives out."
"Or me," put in Anstice, laughing. "But, Josie, see how much trouble these children got into, until they got hold of and held on to the golden thread. And you know who held the other end of that thread? It was the King Himself, the King of the Golden City. We ought to be all travelling with our fingers on that thread. Heaven is the city, and prayer is the golden thread which keeps us in touch with our Saviour and King. We cannot and ought not, any of us, to travel through life entirely on our own."
There was silence; Josie was rocking the boat to and fro, but she was thinking, and Ruffie's beautiful eyes were dreamily gazing over the lake to the opposite hills, which were tinged with gold from the sun behind them.
"I'd like to have a message to me to set out there," he said very softly.
Anstice could not reply. A lump came in her throat. Could she, had she the knowledge and the power to place his tiny fingers on that golden thread? Was she reading and talking of what she herself had not experienced?
She sprang to her feet.
"And now we'll have tea; but first we must put the boat back till to-morrow."
"Can't we leave it where it is?" questioned Josie. "We shall want it early to-morrow morning."
Anstice stood and looked at them.