The scandalised mamma decided that extempore prayer must be discouraged, and seeking out in one of the manuals a form of prayer of strictly limited range, repressed all additions and emendations.
Obedient to the traditions of her own youth, Lady Isabel, as her children successively attained the mature age of six years, bestowed Bibles upon them, but it was Christian, alone of the family, that applied herself with any diligence to the study of the Scriptures. She began with the Book of Esther (in which she found a satisfaction that in after life remained something of a bewilderment to her), and thence, but this was a year or two later, for no reason that can be assigned, she passed lightly to the Book of Revelation. With it, it may be said, the artistic side of her, that had leaped to sympathy with Larry's emotion over "Dark Rosaleen" and "The Spirit of the Nation," awakened, and her artistic life began. That glittering, prismatic chapter, that tells of the rainbow round about the Throne, in sight like unto an emerald, and the Sea of glass, like unto crystal, that was before the Throne, and the thunderings and the voices, and the Voice as it were a trumpet talking. Christian read the chapter over and over again, for the sheer glory of the beautiful words. She, also, knew of Voices, and Music, that other people did not seem to hear. She could understand, and could tremble to those strange shouts, and trumpet-blasts, and thunderings.
The Pale Horse that happened after the Fourth Seal was broken!
She would sit as still as if she were frozen, while she thought of the Pale Horse coming crashing through Dharrig Wood, with Death on his back, and Hell following with him—she always thought of him in that black wood of pine trees——
"Wake up, Christian!" Miss Weyman, the governess, would say.
One of the Twins would hiss between his teeth: "Christian, dost thou see them?"
Christian would feel a spiritual bump, as though she had been flung off her chair on to the schoolroom floor, and Miss Weyman (always enviously spoken of by adjacent mammas as "that most sensible little Englishwoman") would say:
"I wonder how much you heard of what I was reading! I wish I could see you learning to have a little more concentration!"
Whereas, did the excellent Miss Weyman only know it, a very little more concentration on Christian's part, and it is possible that she, and Judith, and the Twins, might all have seen the Pale Horse thundering past the schoolroom windows. Stranger things have happened. The Indian rope and basket trick, for instance.
"A most curious child—a perfect passion for animals, and so dreamy, if you know what I mean," Miss Weyman would say to a comrade visitor. "And the things that she seems to have learnt from the huntsman! But really a nice little thing, and clever, too, though a most erratic worker! Now, Judith——" Miss Weyman felt there was some satisfaction in teaching Judith. She could concentrate, if the comrade visitor liked! Nothing was a difficulty to her! And her memory! And her energy—Miss Weyman freely admitted that Judith was three years older than Christian, but still——