"Stop a minute," said he gently taking her hand — "What do you 'dare say' I am right about?"
"This — or anything," Elizabeth said, her eye wavering between the water and the shore.
"I don't want you to think that."
"But how am I going to help it?"
He smiled a little and looked grave too.
"I am going to give you a lesson to study."
"Well? —" said Elizabeth with quick pleasure; and she watched, very like a child, while Winthrop sought in his pocket and brought out an old letter, tore off a piece of the back and wrote on his knee with a pencil.
Then he gave it to her.
But it was the precept, —
'Little children, keep yourselves from idols.'