“And some day,” rebuked Miss Prudence, “when you must concentrate your thoughts you will find that you have spoiled yourself.”

“I have found it out now,” acknowledged Marjorie humbly.

“I have to be very severe with myself.”

“I ought to be,” Marjorie confessed with a rueful face, “for it spoils my prayers so often.  I wouldn’t dare tell you all the things I find myself thinking of.  Why, last night—­you know at the missionary meeting they asked us to pray for China and so I thought I’d begin last night, and I had hardly begun when it flashed into my mind—­suppose somebody should make me Empress of China, and give me supreme power, of course.  And I began to make plans as to how I should make them all Christians.  I thought I wouldn’t force them or destroy their temples, but I’d have all my officers real Christians; Americans, of course; and I thought I would compel them to send the children to Christian schools.  I’d have such grand schools.  I had you as principal for the grandest one.  And I’d have the Bible and all our best books, and all our best Sunday School books translated into Chinese and I would make the Sabbath a holy day all over the land.  I didn’t know what I would do about that room in every large house called the Hall of Ancestors.  You know they worship their grandparents and great-great-grandparents there.  I think I should have to let them read the old books.  Isn’t it queer that one of the proverbs should be like the Bible?  ’God hates the proud and is kind to the humble.’  Do you know all about Buddha?”

“Is that as far as you got in your prayer?” asked Miss Prudence, gravely.

“About as far.  And then I was so contrite that I began to pray for myself as hard as I could, and forgot all about China.”

“Do you wander off in reading the Bible, too?”

“Oh, no; I can keep my attention on that.  I read Genesis and Exodus last Sunday.  It is the loveliest story-book I know.  I’ve begun to read it through.  Uncle James said once, that when he was a sea-captain, he brought a passenger from Germany and he used to sit up all night and read the Bible.  He told me last Sunday because he thought I read so long.  I told him I didn’t wonder.  Miss Prudence,” fixing her innocent, questioning eyes upon Miss Prudence’s face, “why did a lady tell mother once that she didn’t want her little girl to read the Bible through until she was grown up?  It was Mrs. Grey,—­and she told mother she ought not to let me begin and read right through.”

“What did your mother say?”

“She said she was glad I wanted to do it.”