"I wish you'd come, too, Millie, and help us choose," she said. "You read so much, you know which are the nicest."
"All right," said Millie, in a choked kind of voice. "I'd love to." And then the doors opened, and they all trooped into their places.
When they came out from the morning service each went home with her own people. Patty, looking fragile and pale, was helped along by her father. Mona joined her father and grandmother. She was quiet, and had very little to say.
"Did you like your class?" asked granny. She was a little puzzled by Mona's manner. She had expected her to be full of excitement.
"Yes, I liked it very much," but she did not add anything more then. It was not until evening, when they were sitting together in the firelight, that she opened her heart on the subject. "I wish I'd known our teacher all my life," she said, with a sigh.
"Why, dearie?"
"Oh—I don't know—gran—but she makes you see things, and she makes you feel so—so—well as if you do want to be good, and yet you feel you want to cry."
"Try and tell me what she said," said granny. "Perhaps 'twould help an old body, too."
But Mona could not do that, nor could she put her feelings into words very well. "I'll read to you instead, if you'd like me to, granny."
When Millie Higgins had come out of church she had walked rapidly homewards by herself. Patty and her father had gone on. Mona was with her father and grandmother, and Millie felt that she could not face Mrs. Barnes just then. She was fighting a big fight with herself, and she had not won yet. But in the afternoon, when they came out of the school library, the two walked together. They took Patty home, because she was too tired to do any more that day. Then Mona and Millie hesitated, looking at each other. "I must go home, too," said Mona. "I thought I'd have been able to go for a walk, but it's too late. Granny'll be expecting me."