She went on with the story; but the death of the babes of Bethlehem proved too much for poor Clarice, and her burst of lamentation brought the first reading to an abrupt conclusion.
"Oh, the poor little babies!—Little, small babies like our Agnes—all murdered; and their mothers loved them as you love us. Oh, how could he do it? Mother, are you sure it is true?"
And when she was going to sleep that night, Clarice begged that baby Agnes might be brought to her, that she might kiss her.
"Oh, little baby," she whispered, "I said I hated you, but it was not true! How could that Herod hurt a wee little white thing like you?"
But next day, she had got over her horror sufficiently to permit her to wish for more of the "story about His Son," as she called it. And patient Elise laid aside her needle and read on. The history of the preaching of the Baptist, of our Lord's baptism, and of the temptation were read and listened to in silence; but when they reached the twenty-fourth verse of the fourth chapter, where miracles of healing are recorded, Clarice sighed deeply.
"If I had lived in those days, Aymer would have carried me a hundred miles to find Him," she said.
Mrs. Egerton hastily turned over the leaf and began the Sermon on the Mount.
Neither mother nor child ever forgot that reading. Clarice had never heard it before: Elise had read it with her eyes only. But now, with a pair of great blue eyes, dark and bright, fixed on her face, and a little eager voice insisting on a meaning for every word and sentence, somehow there was a great deal in that sermon that Elise had never seen there before. There was much that she could not explain, for she was very ignorant, and her mind was smothered under all her cares; but there was much that seemed very plain.
They went no further that day, and the result of Clarice's meditations was expressed when her mother was leaving her for the night.
"Mother, one lovely thing is that even if I don't get well, I may try to be good. You know He said that it was meek people, and peace-makers, and those that mourn, that are blessed. And all those things I can try to be. Only it won't be easy, because when I have bad pain, I do like to scream and be cross."