"What a queer girl you are, Jess! Anybody would think that you were a minister going to hold church in the cottage. But I'm agreed, if you want to; I like singing anyway. It seems to let off a little of the 'go' in a fellow."
By this time they had reached the cottage, and if they had been a prince and princess—supposing that such titled personages were living in these United States—they could not have had a warmer welcome. Gardener Jim opened the door in such haste that he scattered the ashes from his pipe over the rag-carpet on the floor. Phœbe, too, contrived to drop her spectacles while she was saying "How do you do," and it took at least three minutes to find them again.
At length, however, the surprise being over, the children removed their wraps, Jim refilled his pipe, and Phœbe settled herself in her chair. She was slowly revolving in her mind the question whether it would be best to offer her visitors a lunch of cookies or one of apples, when Jessie said:
"Phœbe, wouldn't you like to have me read you a chapter or two?"
"'Deed and I would, miss, and I'd be that grateful that I couldn't express myself. My eyes, you see, are getting old, and Jim's not much better, and neither of us was ever a scholard."
So Jessie read in her sweet, clear voice the chapters beloved in palace and in cottage, about the holy city New Jerusalem, and about the pure river of water of life, clear as crystal; about the tree whose leaves are for the healing of the nations; about the place where they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light; and they shall reign for ever and ever.
"Dear me, dear me!" exclaimed Phœbe, "it seems almost like being there, doesn't it? Now I'll have something to think of to-night if I lie awake with the rheumatism."
"We're going to sing to you, too," was Tommy's rejoinder.
Then he and Jessie sang "It's coming, coming nearer, that lovely land unseen," and "O, think of the home over there" and Phoebe's favorite:
"In the far better land of glory and light
The ransomed are singing in garments of white,
The harpers are harping and all the bright train
Sing the song of redemption, the Lamb that was slain."