He heard a stifled laugh from Cecil.
“Oh, Lance,” she said, “Gwen is much too young to care for it. Come, shut the door, and we will begin.”
Again came the sound of trotting feet, then Cecil’s clear, low voice. “What story do you want?”
“Read about the three men walking in the fender and the fairy coming to them,” said Lance promptly.
“Not a fairy, Lance.”
“Oh, I mean a angel,” he replied apologetically.
So she read him his favorite story of Nebuchadnezzar the king, and the golden image and the three men who would not bow down to it.
“You see,” she said at the end, “they were brave men; they would not do what they knew to be wrong. We want you to grow like them.”
There was a silence, broken at last by Lance.
“I will only hammer nails in wood,” he said gravely.