"Have you seen anything of the great people?" he asked one evening, when Dolly had moved his sudden admiration.
"Do you mean the people at the House?" his wife said. "No, of course. Don't you know, Mr. Copley, you must be great yourself to have the great look at you."
"Humph! There are different ways of being great. I shouldn't wonder, now, if you could show Lady Brierley as much as Lady Brierley could show you—in some ways."
"What extravagant notions you do have, Frank," said his wife. "You are so much of an American, you forget everybody around you is English."
"Lady Brierley has been only a little while come home," said Dolly. "We need not discuss her yet."
And so speaking, Dolly brought out the Bible. The reading with her mother had become a regular thing now, greatly helpful to Mrs. Copley's good rest, Dolly believed, both by day and night; and latterly when he had been at the cottage her father had not run away when she brought her book. Alone with her mother, Dolly had long since added prayer to the reading; not yet in her father's presence. Her heart beat a little, it cost an effort; all the same Dolly knew it must now be done. With a grave little face she brought out her Bible, laid it on the table, and opened it at the fifth chapter of Matthew.
"Here comes our domestic chaplain!" said her father. Dolly looked up at him and smiled.
"Then of course you would not interfere with anything the chaplain does?" she said.
"Only not preach," said her father in the same tone. "I don't approve of any but licensed preaching. And that one need not hear unless one has a mind to."
"I let the Bible do the preaching, generally," said Dolly. "But we do pray, father."