Sylvia did not say anything but that it was very pretty, in a low voice, and then she quickly left the shop, much to Coulson's displeasure.
All the afternoon she was unusually quiet and depressed.
Alice Rose, sitting helpless in her chair, watched her with keen eyes.
At length, after one of Sylvia's deep, unconscious sighs, the old woman spoke:
'It's religion as must comfort thee, child, as it's done many a one afore thee.'
'How?' said Sylvia, looking up, startled to find herself an object of notice.
'How?' (The answer was not quite so ready as the precept had been.) 'Read thy Bible, and thou wilt learn.'
'But I cannot read,' said Sylvia, too desperate any longer to conceal her ignorance.
'Not read! and thee Philip's wife as was such a great scholar! Of a surety the ways o' this life are crooked! There was our Hester, as can read as well as any minister, and Philip passes over her to go and choose a young lass as cannot read her Bible.'
'Was Philip and Hester——'