The promise was kept.
When the company had gone, Aunt Maria called them in, and made them take a thorough bath, and put on clean clothes all the way through. Then she bade each sit down, in the room with her, and read a chapter in the Bible. As Mabel could not read, she gave her a picture Bible to look at. She sat by, with so grave a face, and had so little to say, that they all began to feel uncomfortable, and wished themselves somewhere else. Edith's face was covered with blushes, Mabel began to swallow a lump in her throat, and Johnnie at last, growing angry, determined to stand it no longer. He shut up his Bible, and marched to Aunt Maria, who [pg 47] looked at him through her spectacles, and said:
"Well, sir? Who told you to shut up your book?"
"It does no good to read the Bible when anybody's mad with you," said Johnnie. "What have we done, Aunt Maria?"
"I did not say you had done anything."
"But you look so cross, and sit up so straight, and—who ever heard of reading the Bible, in the middle of the afternoon, on a week day?" said Johnnie with an air of assurance.
"Well, Johnnie, to tell the truth, I did not like your bringing all the riff-raff of the town to eat my nice cherries."
"But you said we might do it."
"I should think, Johnnie, you would have liked better to have such friends as Percival Lester and Reginold Randolph, or Maggie and Clara Vale, to play with. I fear you have low tastes, child."