Tiff hurried into the house to call Fanny; produced a copy of a Testament, which, with much coaxing, he had persuaded Cripps to bring on his last visit; and, while Fanny sat at her feet making larkspur rings, she turned over the pages, to think what to read. When she saw Tiff's earnest and eager attention, her heart smote her to think that the book, so valuable in his eyes, was to her almost an unread volume.
"What shall I read to you, Tiff? What do you want to hear?"
"Well, I wants to find out de shortest way I ken, how dese yer chil'en's to be got to heaven!" said Tiff. "Dis yer world is mighty well long as it holds out; but, den, yer see, it don't last forever! Tings is passing away!"
Nina thought a moment. The great question of questions, so earnestly proposed to her! The simple, childlike old soul hanging confidingly on her answer! At last she said, with a seriousness quite unusual with her:—
"Tiff, I think the best thing I can do is to read to you about our Saviour. He came down into this world to show us the way to heaven. And I'll read you, when I come here days, all that there is about Him—all he said and did; and then, perhaps, you'll see the way yourself. Perhaps," she added, with a sigh, "I shall, too!"
As she spoke, a sudden breeze of air shook the clusters of a prairie-rose, which was climbing into the tree under which she was sitting, and a shower of rose-leaves fell around her.
"Yes," she said to herself, as the rose-leaves fell on her book, "it's quite true, what he says. Everything is passing!"
And now, amid the murmur of the pine-trees, and the rustling of the garden-vines, came on the ear of the listeners the first words of that sweet and ancient story:—
"Now, when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the King, behold there came wise men from the East, saying, 'Where is He that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and are come to worship Him.'"