There were already three other little girls in the class, who all gazed in amazement at the new pupil. Rosie Carrick was there, Rosie of the pink cheeks and the long curls who was Elizabeth's dearest chum. Rosie giggled at the sight of Trip, and Elizabeth felt ashamed. Rosie was the dearest girl in the world, but she would giggle at anything, even a tragedy.
"Please, teacher," said Katie Price, "Lizzie Gordon's fetched a dog into Sunday school." Katie Price always told things, and Rosie stopped giggling and whispered, "Aw, tattle-tale!"
The teacher looked down at the little dog crouching between Elizabeth's feet and Eppie's. But she did not look the least bit cross. Martha Ellen never did. She giggled harder than Rosie, and exclaimed:
"Laws! Lizzie Gordon, where did you get him?" and then straightened her big hat and glanced across the aisle towards Mr. Coulson's class. Elizabeth looked up at her in overwhelming gratitude. She had always adored Martha Ellen Robertson, but never so much as at this minute.
"Please, teacher," she faltered, "Martin's Brag was going to eat him up. He's Charles Stuart MacAllister's dog, and I can give him to Charles Stuart when he comes."
"Oh, he ain't going' to hurt anybody; are you, little doggie?" whispered Martha Ellen good-naturedly. "He'll be all right so long as your grandpa don't see him; eh, Eppie?"
Eppie smiled shyly, and then Noah Clegg's squeaky boots sounded up the aisle and Sunday school had commenced.
Elizabeth drew a great sigh of relief, and glanced about her to see if anyone appeared conscious of the guilty secret squeezed between her and Eppie. But apparently no one was. All her own family, seated about the room, seemed absorbed in their own affairs.
Each of the Gordons had a place in Sunday school, either as pupil or teacher. Mr. Gordon taught the old folk who sat on the front row of seats. Every Sabbath they were there, their hard hands folded, their gray heads and toil-worn shoulders bent, listening while the man with the sad, sweet face told them stories of One whose hands had been rent, and whose shoulders had been bowed by the burden of their sin, and Who, could they but know Him, would, under all the labor and money-getting of their narrow lives, reveal to them life's true and noble meaning.
Miss Gordon taught the Young Ladies' Bible Class, her most critical pupil being Sarah Emily, whose presence there the good lady could not but regard as an intrusion. Annie taught a class of tiny girls near the front. She had taken her place beside them and sat with bent head and scarlet cheeks. Long ago she had learned that from her position it was very easy to catch the eye of the teacher of a class of big boys across the aisle. But one swift glance at him sitting up straight, haughty, and severe, convinced her she must never expect a kindly glance from that source again. She had bidden him go, because her aunt had commanded her, but, oh, how could she have suspected that he would obey? She sat in misery, striving desperately to keep back her tears.