"Didn't I say so?" exclaimed Judy.
"But it was her Bible that answered me—hers and my own."
"When did she help you?" Norton broke out from his corner where he had been tossing his book. "You and she are not such particular friends, that ever I knew."
"O but I think we are now, Norton," said Matilda.
"Yes," said David, with a smile. "And she has been my friend for a good while."
"Very well," said Norton, returning to his book, which he tossed over and over with greater exactness than ever.
"I wash my hands of you, both of you," cried Judy. "You'll be a religious poke—O mamma! to think that we should have anything religious in our family. And Matilda always was a poke. Whatever will become of us, with two of them!"
"You have more to do with it than you think, Judy," said her brother. "The way Matilda bore your persecutions was the first thing that made me want to know about her religion."
"What persecutions?" Mrs. Bartholomew asked; but nobody seemed ready to answer her, and she went on—"Judy, you are a fool. David might change his opinions, surely, without being a poke. My son, you do not mean to be different from what you have always been,—do you?"
David hesitated, and said, "I hope so, mother."