“Ay, those were brave days, Miss Grace, brave, heartsome days. It was easy to feel good and Christian-like then, and wish well to everybody; but I can’t do it now, I cannot. When I’m sitting here all alone, texts come into my head; but they are all what I used to call bad ones, about vengeance, and hatred, and punishment. There are no others I can mind now. That thief of the world has destroyed us body and soul, but it will come to him. He will get his deserts yet.”
Grace rose, and walked into an inner room, where, on the top of a chest of drawers, bright as beeswax could keep them, lay the family Bible, with Scott’s spectacles, heirlooms like the book, reposing upon it.
Lifting the Bible she carried it out, placed it upon the dresser, and, turning to the Gospels, read the last six verses of the fifth chapter of St. Matthew softly and slowly. Then she closed the volume and took it back again.
“It’s well for them that can do all that,” said Mrs. Scott, not defiantly, but in simple good faith.
“Some day we shall all be able to feel it, and do it, please God,” answered Grace, and, stooping over the back of Mrs. Scott’s chair, she kissed the face of the humble friend who had once been like a mother to her.
“Good-bye,” she said. “Let Reuben write to me, and get Amos away from here, if you can, before worse comes of it.”
“What is this, Miss Grace?” asked Mrs. Scott, as her visitor laid a small packet in her lap.
“It is what you will need,” said Grace, “when perhaps I am not near at hand to come to for it.”
“Is it money?” inquired the woman.
“Yes; surely you do not mind taking it from me?”