'I should like to explain to you some of my doings; and I must go a roundabout way to do it. Miss Hazel, do you read the Bible much?'
'Much?' she said with a sudden look up. 'What do you call "much?" '
He smiled at her. 'Are you in the habit of studying it?'
'As I study other things I do not know?—Not often. Sometimes,' said Wych Hazel, thinking how often she had gone over that same ninety-first Psalm.
'What is your notion of religion?—as to what it means?'
She glanced up at him again, almost wondering for a moment if his wits were 'touched.' Then seeing his eyes were undoubtedly sane and grave, set her own wits to work.
'It means,' she answered slowly after a pause, 'to me, different things in different people. All sorts of contradictions, I believe!—In mamma, as they tell of her, it meant everything beautiful, and loving, and loveable, and tender. And it puts Dr. Maryland away off—up in the sky, I think. And it just blinds Prim, so that she cannot comprehend common mortals. And it seems to open Gyda's eyes, so that she does understand—like mamma. And—I do not know what it means in you, Mr. Rollo!'
'You never saw it in me.'
'No.'
'Let me give you a lesson to study,' said he. 'Something I have been studying lately a good deal. I must take this minute before we are interrupted. Have you got a Bible here?'