"Well, Nannie, I wish I were in your place—not obliged to go to church, and not sick enough to lose your dinner. I always go to church, for fear, if I'm sick, father'll say, 'Turkey isn't good for headache.' I never thought of such a convenient excuse as spraining my ankle. Let me hear how you did it. It's too late to try it now, but it may do the next time."
"O Jack, how you do talk! I'm so glad you're better than you talk."
"How do you know that, Miss Nannie?"
"Why, everybody knows it. This morning you laughed at me; but as soon as you found out I was really hurt, you drew me and that big basket too on your barrow. You're so kind."
Jack whistled a tune and kicked the fire-irons, because he didn't want Nannie to see the tears that started. He was too much of a boy to let them do anything but start.
"Jack," Nannie began, after a pause, "why don't you like to go to church?" She was saying to herself all the time, "In the courts of the Lord's house, in the midst of thee, O Jerusalem."
"Oh, I don't know; I should like it well enough if father would let me sit up with the rest of the boys in the gallery."
"But you wouldn't do as they do in church, Jack?"
"Why not?"
"It's God's house," said Nannie softly. Jack sat silent for a long time, while Nannie lay looking into the fire, and whispering all the time to herself, "Be patient, be patient."