“May I be with you while you talk to your little scholars?” asked Annis.
“Oh, yes! if you wish; and perhaps you may like to teach some of them yourself.”
“Well, maybe,” Annis answered, and just then the call to dinner came.
At the table Dr. Landreth asked Mr. Dinsmore the same question which Elsie had answered to Annis, “How do you spend the rest of the day here? I understand there is no afternoon or evening service near enough for us to attend.”
“No, there is not,” replied Mr. Dinsmore; and went on to tell of the afternoon instruction to the negroes.
“After that,” said he, “we usually fill up the time with suitable reading, and I hear Elsie recite her catechism, passages of Scripture, and perhaps a hymn or two. Most of our evening is usually spent in the study of the Word—a Bible reading in which the three of us take part; and we are very apt to have some sacred music after that. Will you and Mildred and Annis join us in such exercises to-night?”
The invitation was accepted with pleasure by all three.
“What subject shall we take up to-night?” asked Mr. Dinsmore as they gathered about the centre-table after tea, with Bibles, Concordance, and Bible Text-Book.
“Christ a living Saviour,” suggested Mildred; “living still in both his divine and his human nature.”
“There could not be a sweeter theme,” said Rose. “‘Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again; who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.’”