“If mine are false to you, yours are false to me,” said the young man kindly. “You can understand that, can't you, Jewel?”
“Yes, I can.”
“And we should never quarrel over it, should we?” he went on.
“No—o!” returned Jewel scornfully. “We'd get a pain.”
“But you can see,” went on the young doctor seriously, “that the more we cared for one another the more we should regret such a wide difference of opinion.”
“I suppose so,” agreed the child, “and so we'd—”
“You are going back to Chicago after a while, and so you understand that I can better afford to agree to differ with you than I could with some one who was going to stay here—your cousin Eloise, for instance.”
The child looked at him in silence. She had never seen Dr. Ballard wear this expression.
“For this reason, Jewel, I want to ask you if you won't do me the favor not to talk to your cousin about Christian Science, nor ask her to read your books, nor to go to church with you.”
The child's countenance reflected his seriousness.