"There!" Lewis said, "now we are in darkness."
"I didn't mean to have it go quite out," Louise answered, laughing. "I was only going to move it a little, to show mother. Never mind, John will get us a candle; won't you, John?"
Thus appealed to, John arose slowly from his corner, went slowly to the high mantel, where shone several beautifully polished candlesticks, took from the paper-holder a paper match, applied it to his mother's candle, solemnly lighted the other candle, and as solemnly handed it to Louise; really performing the first act of simple courtesy for a lady that he had ever done in his life.
"Thank you," she said, quite as a matter of course; yet it was actually the first "thank you" of his grown-up life!
There were certainly two sides to John's gruffness. Louise would have been amazed to know how that simple "thank you" thrilled him! He looked after the bright vision on which the stair-door closed, and had strange stirrings in his heart, the name of which he did not know.
"If I had dared," began Louise, as soon as they were in the privacy of their own room, "I would have substituted that big, old Bible for this book during the last ten minutes, and asked you to read a chapter, and pray with us all. I believe your father would have liked it. I don't believe he is as indifferent to these things as he seems."
"It is well you don't dare," her husband said gravely; "I am afraid I should have disappointed you. Louise, I don't believe I could have done that; it looks to me like an almost impossible thing."
"Why, Lewis, you led at family worship at home right before papa and mamma and Estelle; and, sometimes, when the house was full of company!"
"That was a very different thing," he answered earnestly. "I felt then that the head of the house was in sympathy with me, and joined in the reading and the praying. It was like a company of brothers and sisters talking together with their father; but here it is different. My father's tendency would be to make light of the whole thing."
"I don't believe it," she said positively. "I can't believe that he would make light of an earnest, simple prayer, such as you would offer. It is the profession of godliness, and an absence of the fruit that he naturally expects to see in lives, which inclines him to ridicule. That sounds harsh, Lewis, but I don't mean harshness. What I mean is, that he evidently expects great things of Christians, and their lives, naturally enough, disappoint him. How do you know, dear, but that your very silence, or reserve, toward him on these subjects leads him to question the degree of anxiety you have for his conversion?"