"There are a great many that teach it more or less directly," she said; "we are to be diligent in business, to improve our talents and use them in God's service; children are to obey their parents; and both your grandpa and I have directed you to learn that lesson."
"Mamma, I will do my very best," he said cheerfully, and she saw as she left the room that he was really trying to redeem the promise.
An hour later he came to her with a very bright face, to say that grandpa had pronounced his recitation quite perfect and released him from confinement.
Her pleased look, her smile, her kiss were a sweet reward and a strong incentive to continuance in well-doing.
CHAPTER X.
"To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them."
—Isaiah 8:20.
Some years before this Elsie had built a little church on the plantation, entirely at her own expense, for the use of her dependents and of her own family when sojourning at Viamede. The membership was composed principally of blacks.
A few miles distant was another small church of the same denomination, attended by the better class of whites; planters and their families.
To these two congregations conjointly Mr. Mason had ministered for a long while, preaching to the one in the morning, to the other in the afternoon of each Sabbath.