But Michael recoiled as if she were offering him something disagreeable.
"I wish she hadn't," he said.
"Well, you are ungrateful," said the nurse. "Catch me ever giving you flowers! And why you couldn't have let her come up to see you, I can't think. She would have read a chapter of the Bible to you, perhaps, and that would have done you good."
"I can read one to myself," said Michael.
"You're hardly strong enough for that yet. Have you a Bible?"
"Of course I've got a Bible," replied Michael indignantly. "What do you take me for? There is one somewhere that belonged to my mother, and there are plenty of them in the shop. Pretty old some of them are, too. The older they are, the more precious they are, you know."
"The Bible is precious anyhow," said the nurse. "It is a grand comfort, especially when one is weak and low. But you're thinking only of the binding, and the paper, and the print, Mr. Betts."
"Of course I am," he said; "it's my business to think of them."
"And does it not concern you to think of what is written in the Bible?"
"Oh, I know all about that. I was taught the Bible when I was young. I used to go to Sunday School. You need not look at me, nurse, as if you thought me a great sinner. I've always lived honest and respectable. I've never—"