“I only heard this minute from Mattie that you did not go to church, after all,” she said. “No wonder! What a rain! Papa thought it was too bad to take out the horses. He is tired, too, after his journey. Is it half-past eleven? Everybody is lazy on Sunday morning. But there will be an hour or two before lunch yet. I have brought our friend ‘Jeanie.’ There will be time for a chapter or two.”
Christie looked up with an expression of surprise and doubt on her face.
“Jeanie Deans, is it? But it is the Sabbath-day!”
Miss Gertrude laughed.
“Well, what if it is? I’m sure there is no harm in the book. You looked exactly like Aunt Barbara when you said that; I mean, all but her cap and spectacles. ‘The moral expression’ of your face, as she would say, was exactly the same.”
Christie laughed, but said nothing.
“You don’t mean to tell me that there is any harm in the book?” continued Miss Gertrude.
“It is not a right book for the Sabbath, though,” said Christie, gravely.
“Well, for my part, I don’t see that a book that it is right to read every other day of the week can be so very bad a book for Sunday,” said Miss Gertrude; sharply.
Christie made no reply.