“No, I’ve read that lots of times––long ago. I’m reading ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’ now.”
“Mary, Mary, do you hear this? I think it’s time our Betty had a little supervision in her reading.”
Mary Ballard came to the door from the tea table where she had been arranging her little set of delicate china, her one rare treasure and inheritance. “Yes, I knew she was reading––whatever she fancied, but I thought I wouldn’t interfere––not yet. I have so little time, for one thing, and, anyway, I thought she might browse a bit. She’s like a calf in rare pastures, and I don’t think she understands enough to do her harm––or much good, either. Those things slide off from her like water off a duck’s back.”
Betty looked anxiously up at her mother. What things was she missing? She must read them all over again.
“What else have you out there, Betty?” asked her father.
Betty dropped her head shamefacedly. She never knew when she was in the right and when wrong. Sometimes the very things which seemed most right to her were most wrong. “That’s ‘Paradise Lost.’ It was an old book, father. There was a tear in the back when I took it down. I like to read about Satan. I like to read about the mighty hosts and the angels and the burning lake. Is that hell? I was pretending if the bees swarmed that they would be the mighty host of bad angels falling out of heaven.”
Again Peter flung back his head and laughed. He looked at the child with new interest, but Betty did not smile back at him. She did not like being laughed at.
“It’s true,” she said; “they did fall out of heaven in a swarm, and it was like over at High Knob on the river bank, only a million times higher, because they were so long falling. ‘From morn till noon they fell, from noon till dewy eve.’” Betty looked off into space with half-closed eyes. She was seeing them fall. “It was a long time to be in suspense, wasn’t it, father?” Then every one laughed. Even mother joined in. She was putting the last touches to the tea table.
“Mary, my dear, I think we’d better take a little supervision of the child’s reading––I do, really.”