Entering the parlor with a soft tread Miss Prudence divested herself of hat, gloves, duster and umbrella, and, taking a large palm leaf fan from the table, seated herself near the sleeper, gently waving the fan to and fro as a fly lighted on Marjorie’s hands or face.  On the window seat were placed a goblet half filled with lemonade, a small Bible, a book that had the outward appearance of being a Sunday-school library book, and a copy in blue and gold of the poems of Mrs. Hemans.  Miss Prudence remembered her own time of loving Mrs. Hemans and had given this copy to Marjorie; later, she had laid her aside for Longfellow, as Marjorie would do by and by, and, in his turn, she had given up Longfellow for Tennyson and Mrs. Browning, as, perhaps, Marjorie would never do.  She had brought Jean Ingelow with her this morning to try “Brothers and a Sermon” and the “Songs of Seven” with Marjorie.  Marjorie was a natural elocutionist; Miss Prudence was afraid of spoiling her by unwise criticism.  The child must thoroughly appreciate a poem, forget herself, and then her rendering would be more than Miss Prudence with all her training could perfectly imitate.

“Don’t teach her too much; she’ll want to be an actress,” remonstrated Marjorie’s father after listening to Marjorie’s reading one day.

Miss Prudence laughed and Marjorie looked perplexed.

“Marjorie is to comfort with her reading as some do by singing,” she replied.  “Wait till you are old and she reads the Bible to you!”

“She reads to me now,” he said.  “She read ’The Children of the Lord’s Supper’ to me last night.”

Miss Prudence moved the fan backward and forward and studied the sleeping, innocent face.  I had almost written “sweet” again; I can scarcely think of her face, as it was then, without writing sweet.  It would be long, Miss Prudence mused, before lines and creases intruded here and there in that smooth forehead, and in the tinted cheeks that dimpled at the least provocation; but life would bring them in time, and they would add beauty if there were no bitterness nor hardness in them.  If the Holy Spirit dwelt in the temple of the body were not the lines upon the face his handwriting?  She knew more than one old face that was growing more attractive with each year of life.

The door was pushed open and Mrs. West’s broad shoulders and motherly face appeared.  Miss Prudence smiled and laid her finger on her lips and, smiling, too, the mother moved away.  Linnet, in her kitchen apron, and with the marks of the morning’s baking on her fingers, next looked in, nodded and ran away.  After awhile, the sleeping eyelids quivered and lifted themselves; a quick flush, a joyous exclamation and Marjorie sprang into her friend’s arms.

“I felt as if I were not alone!  How long have you been here?  Oh, why didn’t you speak to me or touch me?”

“I wanted to have the pleasure all on my side.  I never saw you asleep before.”