Page:Traits and Trials.pdf/98

92 "Will you not," said her new friend, "let me see the book which you are carrying about so carefully? It is a very pretty prayer-book." Julia immediately rose and offered the volume, which Mrs. Wilson opened: on the first page there appeared some legible, but very peculiar, hand-writing, more resembling Arabic than English characters. The inscription was as follows: "To Julia Dalton, from her affectionate nurse, who hopes God will bless her, and keep her the same good girl, till she comes home again. Eda."

"Your nurse, I see," observed Mrs. Wilson, giving back the book with an encouraging smile, "gives you a good character; so we shall expect you to be very good here."

"I will try," answered Julia, lifting up her dark eyes in which the tears yet lingered.

"Then I am sure that you will succeed. Let largelarge dark eyes (above) [sic] me hear how you can read." Julia opened the volume, at first her voice faltered, but her companions re-assured her, and she read a portion with distinctness and a natural grace, and answered