She paused for a moment and sorted a piece of cloth to fit on the dress she was patching.
“At eighteen—that’s a gey guid wheen of years ago now—I took it in my heid that I wisna goin’ to sin ony mair,” Ellen went on. “I got very religious and bowed myself in the dust before God. ‘He’ll ne’er forgie me my trespasses,’ I said, ‘for I’m a poor miserable sinner.’ I got a Bible then and read in it mony things that were a consolation and an upliftin’ to me. And last night I bought one on the streets, Norah. A man with a barrow was sellin’ them, and I got one for a penny. I thought that maybe we would read pieces from it together.”
“The Catholic Church doesn’t allow us to read the Bible,” said Norah.
“I’ll only read one little bit,” said Ellen, taking a dilapidated volume from her pocket. “Ye’ll listen to it, Norah, won’t ye?”
“Anything that pleases yerself, Ellen, will please me.”
III
ELLEN laid down her scissors, trimmed the wick of the lamp, resumed her seat, wetted her thumb and began to turn over the pages of the volume.
“Here it is,” she said, and commenced to read in a low voice.
“ ‘And early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people came unto Him; and He sat down and taught them. And the Scribes and Pharisees’—they were a kind of people that lived in them days, Norah—‘brought unto Him a woman taken in’—who committed a bad sin; ‘and when they had set her in the midst, they say unto Him: Master, this woman was taken’—when she was sinnin’—‘in the very act. Now Moses in the Law commanded us that such should be stoned: but what sayest Thou? This they said, temptin’ Him, that they might have to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground, as though He heard them not. So when they continued asking Him, He lifted up Himself and said unto them: He that is without sin amongst you let him first cast a stone at her. And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last, and Jesus was left alone and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had lifted up Himself and saw none but the woman, He said unto her: Woman, where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her: Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more.’ ”
Tears showed in Ellen’s eyes when she finished reading; then without giving Norah time to speak, she went on with her own story.