"Have you your old Bible yet, miss?"
"Not here," answered Lady Jane, colouring a little; but recollecting, she said, "I have got a very pretty one, though," and she produced a beautiful volume bound in velvet and gold.
"A deal handsomer, Miss Jennie, but not so well read, I'm afeared," said Donica Gwynn, looking at the fresh binding and shining gilt leaves.
"There it is, Donnie Don; but I feel like you, and I do like the old one best, blurred and battered; poor old thing, it looked friendly, and this like a fashionable chaplain. I have not seen it for a long time, Donnie; perhaps it's lost, and this is only a show one, as you see."
And after a few seconds she added, a little bitterly, almost angrily, "I never read my Bible now. I never open it," and then came an unnatural little laugh.
"Oh! Miss Jennie, dear—I mean my Lady Jane—don't say that, darling—that way, anyhow, don't say it. Why should not you read your Bible, and love it, better now nor ever, miss—the longer you live the more you'll want it, and when sorrow comes, what have you but that?"
"It's all denunciation, all hard names, and threats, Donnie. If people believed themselves what they say every Sunday in church, miserable sinners, and I dare say they are, they'd sicken and quake at sight of it. I hope I may come to like it some day, Donnie," she added, with a short sigh.
"I mind, Miss Jennie—I mean my Lady Jane."
"No, you're to call me Jennie still, or I'll drop Donnie Don, and call you Mrs. Gwynn," said Lady Jane, with her hands on Donica's thin shoulders, playfully, but with a very pensive face and tone.
Donica smiled for a moment, and then her face saddened too, and she said—