If his sister Rosa had felt as ungenerously and unkindly to those younger than herself, she would have at least laughingly refused the arm which he offered her as they went down the walk. But she took the arm, although she had to stoop a little in doing so, and talked with her brother as if he really were the man he was trying to appear.
As Harty was thus honoured, he looked back triumphantly at poor Lucy, who was still watching them. A pang of envy shot through the heart of the little girl. Julia Staples's evil words came to her mind; the bad seed was springing up. "Rosa and Harty will always be together; they won't care for me," she thought. But good seed had been sown by Rosa, and it, too, now sprang up. "God loves me," thought the little girl; "if I try to please Him I shall be happy."
She rose and wont into her own pretty room: there she put everything carefully in its proper place, and felt a new pleasure in doing so; for it was her duty.
CHAPTER VIII.
STAYING AT HOME.
The house was very still, and as Lucy moved about she was half startled at the sound of her own footsteps. She went into her sister's room to sit, for she fancied that it was more pleasant than her own; and then all Rosa's books were there; perhaps she might like to look at some of them.
The Bible was on the table; she took it up. "Rosa, from her Uncle Gillette," was written on the blank leaf; and before it were several sentences. They were as follows:—"Remember when you open this book, that God is with you, that He is speaking to you. Remember to ask God to bless to you what you read. When you close the book, think over what you have been reading, and take the first opportunity to practise it."
As Lucy read the first sentence, a fooling of awe stole over her; and she almost trembled to think how often she had carelessly opened the word of God, and hurried over its sacred pages. Now she reverently turned to the place where her sister had left the mark the evening before. The story of the storm on the sea of Galilee caught her eye: as she read it she felt sure that it must have been that sweet narrative which had so fixed Rosa's attention when she watched her.
Lucy repeated, again and again, the words of the blessed Saviour, "Why are ye so fearful, O ye of little faith?" They seemed addressed to her by the kind Friend who stilled the tempest, and who, Rosa had said, would be ever with her to take care of her, if she would love Him and strive to be truly His child. "I will, I will love Him, and try to please Him," she said, half-aloud. "I should never be afraid, if I were sure He would watch over me."
She took up the Prayer Book, and read the verses with which the Morning Service commences. Some of them she did not quite understand; but when she came to "I will arise, and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son," she was reminded of the day when her sister had read to her the sweet parable from which those words are taken, and how she had said that one purpose of the parable was to show how willing God is to receive all those who really come to Him. Again her purpose strengthened to be His child, who could so freely forgive.