She stole down stairs before any one was stirring, save Inga in the kitchen, found a Bible and took it over to the window-seat, where she opened it gingerly.
“I wonder where they begin,” she thought. “Might as well look Genesis over first, to refresh my memory.” She spread the thin pages open, and began to read. Outside the open window the birds were noisily celebrating the sunny morning. Inga ground the coffee. A bell rang for early service somewhere. Hannah’s eyes wandered from the page.
“‘And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.’ It sounds just like poetry,” she thought. “But what could I tell youngsters about it? They would be sure to want to know just how the waters were kept off the firmaments. I hope–no, I know, Elsmere is in that class!” In silent horror, Hannah sat staring out of the window. Memories of Catherine’s Sunday dinner talk swarmed back into her mind. She had thought the stories amusing: how Elsmere had chewed gum and put it into the collection envelope; how Perdita Osgood had described in vivid detail her seasickness of a summer before; how the little Hamilton girl had asked personal and embarrassing 189 questions of Catherine herself. It had sounded funny, when Catherine told the tales in her quiet way,–but to be alone with them for an hour! Hannah’s heart failed her entirely. She shut the Bible and marched up to Catherine’s room. Catherine was dressing, as far away from the mirror as possible.
“Hannah, dear,” she called, seeing the brown hair and blue eyes through a crack in the door. “Do come in. You don’t know what a dear you were to take that class. I went straight to sleep, and didn’t mind the pain nearly so much after that. It worried me so. You see, the Sunday-school is so small and I had been over and over it in my mind, and couldn’t think of any one who would do. It’s the last class any one is ever willing to take.”
“Why?” asked Hannah, her prepared refusal suspended.
“O, because it’s so big, and there are all ages of little people in it. But you’ll do beautifully. Children always love you. Do you know what the lesson is?”
Hannah hesitated. Then a glance at Catherine’s distorted face made her ashamed of herself, and she answered bravely:
“No. What is it? I’ll have to study up a lot.”
“You’ll find plenty of material in those leaflets and books in the pile there on the table by my 190 Bible. It’s about the Good Shepherd. And if you’re going down, will you ask mother to come in before breakfast? I don’t believe I’ve been doing the right things.”
So Hannah, laden with Helps and Hints, went slowly down stairs again, and after having sent Dr. Helen up to see her afflicted daughter, resumed her place in the window-seat and put her mind resolutely on the subject of the lesson.