Judge Hildreth had thrust Evadne’s letter, with his own, far under the pile of papers, and double-locked the drawer!

* * * * *

Above the coach-house was a large room where Pompey kept a store of hay and grain, and there Evadne often found herself ensconced with Isabelle’s Bible, during the long mornings when she was left to amuse herself as best she might.  The atmosphere of the house stifled her, and Pompey had loved her father!  It was scrupulously clean.  Under Pompey’s regime spiders and moths found no tolerance, and a magnificent black cat effectually frightened away the audacious rodents which were tempted to depredations by the toothsome cereals in the great bins.  In one corner Pompey had improvised for her a luxurious couch of hay and rugs, and in this fragrant retreat Evadne studied her strange new book.  She brought to it a mind absolutely untrammeled by creed or circumstance, and in this virgin soil God’s truth took root.  Slowly the light dawned.  Hers was no shallow nature to leap to a hasty conclusion and then forsake it for a later thought.  Gradually through the darkness, as God’s flowers grow, this human flower lifted itself towards the light.

Sometimes she would sit for hours with the stately cat upon her knee, thinking, thinking, thinking, while Pompey sang his favorite hymns about his work and the mellow strains floated up the stairway and soothed her lonely heart.  His childlike faith became to her a tower of refuge, and often, when bewildered by life’s inconsistencies, she felt as if the eternal realities were vanishing into mist, she was calmed and comforted by his happy trust.

“I cannot imagine, Evadne,” said Isabelle one evening at dinner, “what pleasure you can find in sitting in a stable in company with a negro!  It certainly shows a most depraved taste.”

“Christ was born in a stable, Isabelle.”

“What in the world has that to do with you?”

“I am beginning to think he has everything to do with me,” answered her cousin quietly.

“Well,” said Isabelle with a toss of her head, “we are known by the company we keep.  I should imagine Pompey’s curriculum of manners was not on a very elevated plane.”

“Pompey!  Isabelle,” said Judge Hildreth suddenly.  “Why, my dear, Pompey is a modern Socrates, bound in ebony.  There is no danger to be apprehended from him.”

“Well, it is a peculiar companionship for Judge Hildreth’s niece, that is all I have to say,” said Isabelle coldly, “but chacun a son gout.”

“I read this morning in your Bible that God had chosen the base things of the world, and things which are despised, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are.  What does that mean, Isabelle?”

“Really, Evadne, we shall have to send you to live with Doctor Jerome!” said her aunt, with a careless laugh.  “You are getting to be a regular interrogation point.  We are not Bible commentators, child, you cannot expect us to explain all the difficult passages.