Mrs. Dawson did not go in the morning, as a rule. "Grandfather must have a nice hot dinner once a week," she declared, so she stayed at home to cook it; but they all went together to the evening service, and Jessie dearly loved the walk to church in the quiet summer's evening, with granp and granny on either side of her, and home again through the gathering twilight, sweet with the scent from the gardens and hedges.
Sometimes, when they got home, granny would give them their supper in the garden, if the weather was very warm, and Jessie loved this. While granny was helping her on with her big print overall, grandfather would carry out two big arm-chairs, and a little one for Jessie, and there they would sit, with their plates on their laps and their mugs beside them, and eat and talk until darkness or the falling dew drove them in.
Sometimes they repeated hymns, verse and verse, first grandfather, then granny, and by and by, as she came to know them, Jessie herself would take her turn too. Sometimes they would repeat a psalm or two in the same way, or a chapter, and before very long they had taught Jessie some of these also, so that, to her great delight, she could join in with them.
Then came bedtime, when she knelt in her little white nightgown beside her bed and repeated—
"Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,
Look upon a little child,
Pity my simplicity,
Suffer me to come to Thee
Fain I would to Thee be brought;
Dearest God, forbid it not;
But in the kingdom of Thy grace
Grant a little child her place.
"Pray God bless dear father and mother, grandfather and grandmother, and all kind friends and relations, and help me to be a good girl, for Christ's sake. Amen."
Then, with one look at her rose to see if there were any more buds on it, and a glance into the garden to see if grandfather was still there, she lay down in her little white bed, and with a kiss from granny and a last good-night she would be asleep almost before granny had reached the foot of the stairs.
Then when morning came Jessie was just as glad to open her eyes and spring out of bed as she had been to spring into it, for life was full of all sorts of delights, indeed she would have liked nothing better than for it to go on and on always in the same happy way. With Mrs. Dawson, though, things were different. Granny began to grow very troubled about Jessie's education.
"It is time she was learning," she said anxiously, many a time. "I know she ought to go to Sunday-school regularly, but I don't know how it is to be managed. She can't walk there and back three times a day, I am sure. If she walked there and back in the morning, and there and back in the afternoon, she wouldn't be fit to go with us in the evening too. She would be tired out. We couldn't go to church in the evening either, for one of us would have to stay with her."
Grandfather sat for a few moments meditating deeply over this problem, then, "I can teach her myself for a bit on Sundays," he exclaimed triumphantly, his dear old face lighting up at the thought of it. "I know enough about the Bible and Prayer-book for that. It would do me good too."