Linnet frowned over her clover leaf and Marjorie watched Miss Prudence as she turned the leaves.  Marjorie did not care for the clover leaf, only as she was interested in everything that Linnet’s fingers touched, but Linnet did care for the answer to Marjorie’s question.  She thought perhaps it was about the wheat.

The Bible leaves were still, after a second Miss Prudence read: 

“’For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ.’”

That was not the answer, Linnet thought.

“What does that mean to you, Marjorie?” asked Miss Prudence.

“Why—­it can’t mean anything different from what it says.  Paul was so sorry about the people he was writing about that he wept as he told them—­he was so sorry they were enemies of the cross of Christ.”

“Yes, he told them even weeping.  But I knew an old gentleman who read the Bible unceasingly—­I saw one New Testament that he had read through fifteen times—­and he told me once that some people were so grieved because they were the enemies of the cross of Christ that they were enemies even weeping.  I asked ‘Why did they continue enemies, then?’ and he said most ingenuously that he supposed they could not help it.  Then I remembered this passage, and found it, and read it to him as I read it to you just now.  He was simply astounded.  He put on his spectacles and read it for himself.  And then he said nothing.  He had simply put the comma in the wrong place.  He had read it in this way:  ’For many walk, of whom I have told you often and now tell you, even weeping that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ.’”

“Oh,” cried Marjorie, drawing an astonished long breath, “what a difference it does make.”

“Now I know, it’s punctuation you’re talking about,” exclaimed Linnet.  “Marjorie told me all about the people in the stage-coach.  O, Miss Prudence, I don’t love to study; I want to go away to school, of course, but I can’t see the use of so many studies.  Marjorie loves to study and I don’t; perhaps I would if I could see some use beside ’being like other people.’  Being like other people doesn’t seem to me to be a real enough reason.”

Linnet had forgotten her clover leaf, she was looking at Miss Prudence with eyes as grave and earnest as Marjorie’s ever were.  She did not love to study and it was one of the wrong doings that she had confessed in her prayers many a time.

“Well, don’t you see the reason now for studying punctuation?”

“Yes, I do,” she answered heartily.  “But we don’t like dates, either of us.”

“Did you ever hear about Pompeii, the city buried long ago underground?”

Linnet thought that had nothing to do with her question.

“Oh, yes,” said Marjorie, “we have read about it.  ’The Last Days of Pompeii’ is in the school library.  I read it, but Linnet didn’t care for it.”