“Skip it! No. That would be wicked. I must say it; and if you don’t know that one, we’ll say the Stir Up one. That’s short and easy. Begin.”
“Oh, Connie, I don’t know that, either, nor what you mean,” Kenneth gasped.
“That’s smart! Not know the Stir Up!” came in a muffled voice from Kenneth’s knee, which the cat was scratching by this time, trying to get away from the hands holding it so tight.
“Keep still, can’t you?” Connie said to the cat, and then began the collect for the 25th Sunday after Trinity, sometimes called “Stir Up Day.”
“There! She’s got away and gone under the table,” she exclaimed, as the kitten made a spring for liberty.
Then she went on to the end and started for the cat, while Kenneth improved the opportunity to leave the room, feeling smaller and wickeder than he had ever felt since he stole melons from a neighbor’s garden. Surely a little child was teaching him, and that night he said the neglected prayer of his childhood, kneeling in the darkness and cold of his own room, and promising himself never to omit it again if fifty Hals were there telling him it was nonsense.
CHAPTER V
CONNIE’S CHRISTMAS
After leaving Connie, Kenneth went to say good-night to Mrs. Hart, to whom he said, very deferentially: “I know from my father how warm your house is everywhere, and I know our bedrooms are cold. So, if you don’t mind, I’ll make a fire in your room in the morning before you are awake. I’ll be very still.”
When Kenneth began to speak, Mrs. Hart gave him a haughty stare. But as he went on her countenance relaxed, and she began for the first time to notice what a fine face and figure he had, and how well he spoke.
“Quite gentlemanly for the country,” she thought, and smiled graciously, saying she did not like to trouble him herself, but she presumed Connie might be cold.