"It was certainly a remarkable coincidence--your improving so quickly after Miss Desmond came; but it may have been the result of some fresh medicine the doctor was trying."
"Auntie, I was not taking any medicine. The first night Cousin Alicia came I slept till morning, and the next day I wanted something to eat. The nurses thought it was wonderful, because they had had such difficulty to get me to eat before. Then when they dressed the wounds on my hip every morning I used to scream so, some of the servants went where they could not hear me. In only one week I lost all the pain and I did not cry at all, and very soon one by one the wounds healed."
"It was very remarkable, dear. But do you associate your healing with the book which Uncle Raymond has taken away?"
"Why, Auntie, Science and Health is the Key to the Bible, and the Bible is the 'tree whose leaves are for the healing of the nations.' But people have not understood until they had that Key how to go to the Bible for healing. Cousin Alicia understood; that was why she was able to heal me."
"What you say seems very strange, Carol. If Uncle had not taken the book away, I should have liked to look into it. I expect he would refuse if I asked him to let me read it."
It did not occur to Mrs. Mandeville that she could obtain another copy of the book. The confiscated copy was not the only one to be had. Her conversation with Carol was interrupted just then. The same night when she went, as the evening before, to his bedroom, she found him sitting up in bed. He greeted her eagerly with the words:
"Auntie, I have been thinking."
"Dear boy, what have you been thinking?" She kissed the earnest, upturned face, and realized for the first time that he had a very beautiful countenance, so like, she thought, one of Murillo's child angels.
"I have been thinking, Auntie, of what you said about unorthodox. A good many years ago when Protestants were called heretics, they were unorthodox to the Church of Rome, were they not?"
"Certainly, dear."