"Well, I don't know one chapter from another," reflected Mr. Kitely aloud. "I wonder where the child would like me to read. I'm sure I can't tell what to read."
"Read about Somebody," said Mattie.
From the peculiar expression she gave to the word, her father guessed at her meaning, and opening the gospel part of the book at random, began to read.
He read, from the Gospel by St. Matthew, the story of the Transfiguration, to which Mattie listened without word or motion. He then went on to the following story of the lunatic and apparently epileptic, boy. As soon as he began to read the account of how the child was vexed, Mattie said conclusively:
"That was Syne. I know him. He's been at it for a long time."
"'And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour,'" the bookseller went on reading in a subdued voice, partly because he sat in his shop with the door open, partly because not even he could read "the ancient story, ever new" without feeling a something he could not have quite accounted for if he had thought of trying. But the moment he had read those words, Mattie cried:
"There, I knew it!"
It must be remembered that Mattie had not read much of the New Testament. Mr. Spelt alone had led her to read any. Everything came new to her, therefore; every word was like the rod of Moses that drew the waters of response.
"What did you know, princess?" asked her father.
"I knew that Somebody would make him mind what he was about—I did. I wonder if he let a flash of that light out on him that he shut up inside him again. I shouldn't wonder if that was it. I know Syne couldn't stand that—no, not for a moment. I think I'll go to bed, Mr. Kitely."