Page:Stories told to a child.djvu/25

 sweet gravity, whether we knew the parable she had set us.

She paused for a moment, evidently surprised by our troubled, shamefaced expression; but she asked no question, and, to our utter confusion, advanced straight to the curtain, as if to pull it back. 'Sister, sister!' exclaimed Lucy, springing forward, but not in time to prevent what she was doing; she flung aside the curtain, and O, inexpressible relief and astonishment, no grandmother was there!

We had both risen; and now the full sunshine streamed up over the ceiling and rested on sister's quiet forehead; it did not fall low enough to reach us; we were left in shadow, but the shadow had passed away from our hearts. She said to Lucy, 'Why didst thou check me, child?'

Lucy replied with a sigh of relief, 'I thought grandmother was there.'

We entered the little sanctum, saw how the grandmother's garden shawl and bonnet were thrown over the chair, remarked her garden over-shoes, which had frightened us, the scissors with which she had dressed her plants, and the gloves lying beside her Bible; then we looked at one another with feelings of gratitude, and followed sister to the grandmother's chair, where she sat down while we stood before her and repeated our parable. As she sat there, her tall figure slightly bending forward, the open Bible lying upon her knee, her serene eyes fixed on ours, and the sweet sunshine touching her soft hair and tranquil forehead, she presented a picture which is indelibly impressed upon my memory, together with a sense that I had of the Rh