"But I like it; and I must go now, because I've promised," said Susie. "I do wish you would go with me, it is so nice, Elfie. We sing, and read, and pray to God; and the room is so beautiful with the fire and the gas."
"I know all about it," said Elfie sulkily; "and I know just what you'll do too: you'll go to that school, and then you won't like me. Some of 'em 'll tell you I'm a bad girl, and then you won't speak to me." And the thought of this so overcame poor Elfie that she burst into tears.
Susie put her arm round her neck, and drew her own thin cape over her shoulders. "Nobody shall make me say that about you, Elfie," she said. "Don't cry. I'll love you always; and you shall come to school with me, and learn to read."
But Elfie still shook her head about going to school. "I can't go there," she said.
"Yes, you shall, Elfie. I know why you don't like to go; it's because your frock is so old. But we'll try and make another this week. I think mother would like you to have her frock to go to school in," she added. "And there's her shawl; perhaps we could make two of it; and I don't think she'd mind, as we are so cold."
Susie was determined that nothing should damp her happiness to-night, and she would not listen to Elfie's refusal to go to school. She felt brave, too, or she could not have spoken about cutting up her mother's dress and wearing her shawl as she did. Yes, the little girl was brave and hopeful. What she had heard of God's care and tender love to-day had brought back all the lessons of her childhood; and she could believe that God was her Father, and cared—really cared for and loved her.
When they reached home she said, "I wish you'd kneel down and say 'Our Father' of a night, like I do, Elfie."
"But I don't know it," said Elfie.
"Well, I'll teach you, shall I? You can say it after me in bed until you know it by yourself; only, I'd like you to kneel down and say it first, like I did to mother."
Elfie was generally willing to do anything to please her companion, and she very readily consented to this. And so, after shutting the door, the two girls knelt down in the pale moonlight beside a chair, and Elfie repeated the words slowly and reverently as Susie uttered them—the divine words that make all men brothers and all women sisters.