"Education is the apprenticeship of life."—Willmott.
Marjorie did not study astronomy by starlight, but she awoke very early and tripped with bare feet over the carpet into Miss Prudence's chamber. Deborah kindled the wood fire early in Miss Prudence's chamber that Prue might have a warm room to dress in. It was rarely that Marjorie studied in the morning, the morning hours were reserved for practicing and for fun with Prue. She said if she had guessed how delightful it was to have a little sister she should have been all her life mourning for one. She almost envied Linnet because she had had Marjorie.
The fire was glowing in the airtight when she ran into the chamber, there was a faint light in the east, but the room was so dark that she just discerned Prue's curls close to the dark head on the pillow and the little hand that was touching Miss Prudence's cheek.
"This is the law of compensation," she thought as she busied herself in dressing; "one has found a mother and the other a little girl! It isn't quite like the old lady who said that when she had nothing to eat she had no appetite! I wonder if Miss Prudence has all her compensations!"
She stepped noiselessly over the stairs, opened the back parlor door, and by the dim light found a match and lighted the lamp on the centre table.
Last night had come again. The face of the clock was the only reminder she had left the room, the face of the clock and a certain alertness within herself. As she settled herself near the register and took the astronomy from the pile her eye fell on her Bible, it was on the table where Morris had laid it last night. Miss Prudence's words came to her, warningly. Must she also give the fresh hour of her morning to God? The tempting astronomy was open in her hand at the chapter Via Lactea. She glanced at it and read half a page, then dropped it suddenly and reached forward for the Bible. She was afraid her thoughts would wander to the unlearned lesson: in such a frame of mind, would it be an acceptable offering? But who was accountable for her frame of mind? She wavered no longer, with a little prayer that she might understand and enjoy she opened to Malachi, and, reverently and thoughtfully, with no feeling of being hurried, read the first and second chapters. She thought awhile about the "blind for sacrifice," and in the second chapter found words that meant something to her: "My covenant was with him of life and peace." Life and peace! Peace! Had she ever known anything that was not peace?
Before she had taken the astronomy into her hands again the door opened, as if under protest of some kind, and Morris stood on the threshold, looking at her with hesitation in his attitude.
"Come in," she invited, smiling at his attitude.
"But you don't want to talk."
"No; I have to study awhile. But you will not disturb; we have studied often enough together for you to know how I study."