Why, she wuz brung up with ’em, as you may say.
She had sot under them old prophets ever sence she had sot at all.
And why shouldn’t she went on about ’em and love ’em when she had fairly drinked in their weird, fascinatin’ influence with her mother’s milk?
She wuz a readin’ about Daniel jest as I went in—about how Daniel stood by the deep waters and heard a voice sayin’ to him:
“Understand.”
And sez she, with her great, beautiful eyes all aglow, “Don’t you think that we who stand by deep waters to-day can hear the voice if we listen?”
“Yes,” sez I, “I believe it from the bottom of my heart; if we do as Daniel did, ‘set our hearts to understand,’ we can be kep’ from perils as he wuz, and we can hear that Divine Voice a biddin’ us to understand and to be strong.”
Sez I, “I believe that Voice almost always comes to us in the supreme moments of our greatest need. When we have been mournin’ as Daniel had, and ‘eaten no pleasant bread,’ and lay with our faces on the ground by the deep waters, then comes One to us, onseen by them about us, and touches our bowed heads and sez:
“‘Beloved, fear not. Peace be unto thee. Be strong. Yea, be strong.’”
And then we went on and talked considerable, and she told me how her mother had read to her, as soon as she wuz able to understand anything, all about the prophets, and how she had always loved to think about ’em and their divine work.