"Possibly," returned Mr. Fletcher, a little drily.
"Perhaps if I could read your book, I might be interested in that," continued Emily. "You seem to find it so very entertaining."
"You can look at it if you please," said Mr. Fletcher, spreading it on the table, which it pretty nearly covered. "Can you read black letter?"
"A little," replied Emily.
He turned to the curiously illuminated title page, with its quaint illuminated border of angels, and palm trees, and Scripture characters, all very much mixed up with each other, and Emily saw with surprise that the book was neither more nor less than a Bible!
"What a curious Bible," said she. "It must be very old."
"It is one of the oldest specimens of the printed English Scriptures," replied Mr. Fletcher, pointing to the date, which showed that the volume was printed in the reign of King Edward the Sixth. "I suppose this may have been a church Bible, in the days when the parish was obliged to have a copy of the sacred Scriptures chained to the church desk, to be read to the people at proper times. We can imagine the bluff country gentleman, and the gentle dames, with their maids and children, and a few of the common people, gathered round to hear the reading of the Holy Word, of which most of them had hitherto known only by report, and by the brief snatches read in the church service. Perhaps some of the martyrs who suffered for the truth in the next unhappy reign, may have gathered strength and patience from these very pages."
"How interesting it must have been to them," said Emily, roused from her listlessness, and turning over the pages with a feeling almost of reverence for a book which had outlived so many changes. "It seems strange to think of thus hearing, for the first time, of Joseph and his brothers, and Moses in the ark of bulrushes, and all those stories that one has known ever since one can remember."
"And the baby in the manger at Bethlehem, and the appearance of the angels to the shepherd, and all the wonderful history," continued Mr. Fletcher. "Some unhappy sinner straying in, and shrinking into a corner away from the noble and virtuous dames who sat near the chancel, may have first wept and then repented at hearing of her who anointed Jesus's feet, and wiped them with the hairs of her head, and those very ladies may have felt more inclined to stretch out a helping hand to their erring fellow creature, as they listened to his declaration. 'Her sins, which are many, are forgiven for she loved much.'
"Or some old father and mother, whose gallant and goodly son, who should have been the stay of their declining years, had gone down in the Mary Rose, King Henry's great ship which was sunk at Plymouth with hundreds of sailors and gentlemen of England's best blood on board,—such a father and mother may have listened with tears which were not wholly sorrowful to that story of the grave at Bethany which was a cave, and of which Jesus said, 'Take ye away the stone.'"