Page:Her Benny - Silas K Hocking (Warne, 1890).djvu/104

80 And yet, as he repeated to Nelly the wonderful promise of the Gospel, they seemed sometimes to widen out, until they embraced the whole world, including even him, and for a moment his heart would throb with joy and hope. Then again the bossy front of his creed would loom up before him like an iron wall, hiding the light, shutting out the sunshine, and leaving him still in "outer darkness."

One day Nelly rather startled him by saying, in her sweet childish way—

"I does like that word who-so-ever!"

"Do you?" said Joe.

"Oh, yes, very much; don't you?"

"Well, I 'ardly knows what to make on it."

"How is that, Joe?" said Nelly, looking up with a wondering expression on her face.

"Well, 'cause it seems to mean what it don't mean," said Joe, jerking out the words with an effort. "Oh, no, Joe; how can that be?"

" Well, that's jist where I'm floored, Nelly. But it seem to be the fact, anyhow."

"Oh, Joe! And would the Saviour you've been a-tellin' me of say what He didna mean?" And a startled expression came over the child's face, as if the ground was slipping from beneath her.

"No, no, Nelly, He could not say that; but the pinch is about what the word do mean."

"Oh, the man in the chapel said it meaned