"Why not?"
The lad hesitated and looked embarrassed, flushing to the roots of his hair.
"I am ashamed," he acknowledged. "I am afraid Mr. Harding will laugh at me."
"Oh, John! As though he would! I never heard of anyone being ashamed to read the Bible before. How strange!"
"You don't know Mr. Harding. If he saw me reading the Bible, he'd think me a hypocrite. I'm not that."
"Of course you're not!" she agreed, although she had a very hazy idea what a hypocrite was, but knew it was a term of reproach.
They had now reached home, so there was no further opportunity for conversation. John Monday did not come to meet Mousey in the afternoon, as she had satisfied Mr. Harding that she now knew the way. When the little girl was learning her lessons that evening she looked up from her books and saw the boy poring over one of his favourite stories, which Maria declared did him a great deal of harm, and marvelled that he should be ashamed to read the Bible in his master's presence when he made no attempt to hide the papers which, by all accounts, contained no good but much that was evil.
[CHAPTER X]
MOUSEY'S RICH COUSIN
MOUSEY quickly grew accustomed to school life, and made friends with the other pupils, who soon found out the little there was to know about the quiet, dark-eyed child who lived with the queer old jeweller, whom everyone agreed in considering the most miserly man in the town.