And yet, that she had very strong groping in that direction was discovered to Tom one Sunday when, after some simple, direct teaching about her baptism, she looked up into his face with a sudden smile, and said:
"Why can't I be confirmed? I was all ready once, about six months ago. There was a confirmation at Wylmington, and then I could not go, and I cried myself sick with disappointment. I was ill, you see. My back had begun to be troublesome. Can't you confirm me?"
Tom did not smile at the vague conception of what confirmation meant, but answered the hungry longing for more grace that the question implied.
"You've asked me something I'm unable to give you, Jessie," he said gently. "The rite of Confirmation is not mine to perform. It's the Bishop, the chief shepherd of the flock, to whom belongs that Laying on of Hands, which brings with it, we believe, very special gifts of the Holy Spirit."
Jessie hung her head and blushed a little.
"I knew it was the Bishop who came to Wylmington, but I did not know just what you were. You seem quite different from most clergymen. I thought, maybe, you could confirm people."
"No, I'm just an ordinary every-day Parson, but as you seem keen about it, we will have some talks, and see how much you understand of its meaning. Who prepared you before?"
"Oh, Mr. Marston, the clergyman who has gone away ill, would stop after service on the Sundays; he came up to Wylmington, and told us boys and girls who wished to be confirmed to stay behind whilst he talked to us about it. And he asked us to get our Catechism perfect in between, and he said, if we kept regular to the Sunday class, he would try to see each one of us separately before the Bishop came, but I could only go to one or two of the classes, what with bad weather and being ill, but if I'd been well enough to get there on the day, I believe he'd have let me come, because I wanted it so much."
"Be confirmed, you mean," said Tom. "Why were you so eager?"
"Because, because," stammered Jessie with shining eyes, "it will help to make one good. You promise to be good, and God helps you."