Mrs. Allonby smiled.
'Thank God you can be quite certain of that, Bobby. It doesn't depend on what we do, but upon what Jesus did for us. Let me tell you a little story. Two little girls were going to be taken out to tea one afternoon with their mother. Their names were Nellie and Ada. They were dressed in clean white frocks, and told they might walk up and down the garden path till their mother joined them. "But don't go on the grass," she said, "or you may soil your frocks. It has been raining, and it is wet and muddy." For a short time they walked up and down the path as good as gold. Then Ada saw a frog hop away over the grass. She forgot her mother's command, and ran after it. The grass was slippery; she fell, and her clean frock was all smeared and spoilt by muddy streaks. Her mother came out and was very vexed. "Now, Ada, you will have to stay at home. I can't take you in a dirty frock. It will serve you right for being so disobedient." Ada cried and sobbed, and said she was sorry, and begged to be taken. But her mother said no. Then Nellie, who loved her sister, and was an unselfish little girl, said: "Mother, dear, do take Ada, she is so sorry; let me stay at home, and then she can wear my frock." At first the mother wouldn't hear of this, but Nellie begged so hard that at last she consented. Ada's dirty frock was taken off her and Nellie's clean one put on her. She went to the party and Nellie stayed at home. Now don't you think, as she walked along with her mother, that she would be very careful not to dirty Nellie's clean frock? I think she would be more careful than ever. Jesus Christ kept His robe pure and spotless. He never sinned at all, so His robe is put over us, and we can enter the gates. But oughtn't we to be very careful not to sin, just to show Him how we value our robe, how we love Him for being so kind and good to us?' Mrs. Allonby paused. Bobby nodded his head very solemnly at her.
'Me and Nobbles will 'member that story. I'll tell him it in bed. You know sometimes I make Nobbles do naughty things, but sometimes'—here the twinkle came into the brown eyes—'sometimes Nobbles puts naughty things in my head. He whispers them to me in bed.'
'That isn't Nobbles,' said True, in her downright fashion, 'that's the Devil, isn't it, motherums?'
'No,' asserted Bobby, 'it's Nobbles, all by himself. P'raps Satan may have whispered to him first. Shall I tell you what he wants me to do to-morrer?'
'Oh, do!' True's eagerness to hear Bobby's inventions got the better of her. Mrs. Allonby said nothing. She liked the children to talk freely before her, and she gained a good deal by being listener sometimes.
'You know those top pears on the wall what won't fall down? Nobbles says if I get on a chair and reach up he'll hit them down, and then I can pick them up. We was finking about doing it first thing before breakfus' to-morrer!'
'But it would be you that would do it; and dad said we weren't to touch them unless they were on the ground.'
'It wouldn't be me, it would be Nobbles,' insisted Bobby. 'I couldn't reach up half so high.'
'Then if Nobbles does it,' said Mrs. Allonby, very quietly, 'I shall have to punish him. I shall shut him up in a cupboard for a whole day.'