"May I come in, Cicely?" asked a soft voice at the door.
"Surely, my dear, surely," was the answer. "I'm just a-looking over some of them fine bits where I has my marks. I'll set a chair, Mrs. Celia."
But the chair was set already, and Celia sat down by the old woman.
"Now show me what you like best," she said.
"Well, my dear, I do read most of these here four. 'Tis all good, you know—the very best of reading, of course; but I can understand these here best—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. There's nice reading in Luke—very pretty reading indeed; but the beautifullest of 'em all, my dear, that's John. He is up-and-down like, is John. You see I can't get used to the Book like as you would. There's five bits of John—two long uns and two little uns, and one middling. Now the last of 'em I don't understand; 'tis main hard, only a bit here and there; but when I do come to a bit that I can understand, 'tis fine, to be sure! But 'tis this piece of him after Luke that I reads mostly, and the next piece of him after that. Look!"
It was an old, worn book, bound in plain brown calf, which lay on Cicely's lap. The pages were encumbered with an infinitude of ends of worsted,—black, brown, and gray. These were Cicely's guide-posts. She was slowly pursuing the lines with her finger, till she came upon the passage which she wished to find.
"Now, my dear, you read that."
Celia read, "'And this is the promise which He hath promised us, even eternal life.'"[[9]]
"Wait a bit!" cried old Cicely; "there's another in this big piece—a rare good un. Let me find him!"
And turning hastily over the leaves of her book, she picked out, by the help of the worsteds, the verse she wished.