“That is very beautiful,” said Eloise. “I never heard it before. How well you read it, Jewel.”
“Yes,” replied the child. “It's so much easier to read things when you know them by heart.” Then she turned to the Twenty-third Psalm and read it.
“Yes, I've heard that one. It's beautiful of course, but I never thought of its having anything to do with us.” Eloise was watching her cousin curiously. It seemed too strange for belief that a healthy child of her age should be taking a vital interest in the Bible and endeavoring to prove a position from its pages.
When the girl finally rose to go she turned at the door:—
“Remember your promise not to tell grandfather about this morning,” she said.
Jewel, hovering about her, looked troubled.
“Would you just as lief tell me why?” she asked.
Eloise gave the ghost of a smile. “It would be a long story, and I scarcely think you would understand.”
“I think I could obey you better if you would tell me.”
“Very well. We, my mother and I, are not Mr. Evringham's real relations,—to put it as you do,—and we have come here because my poor father lost his money and we have nowhere else to go. We came without being invited, and it hurts to have to stay where we are not wanted. I don't wish grandfather to think that I am being kind to you, for fear he will believe that I am doing it to make him like me better and because I want to stay here.”