“Do you know when it was buried?”

“No,” said Linnet, brightening.

“Have you any idea?”

“A thousand years ago?” guessed Marjorie.

“Then you do not know how long after the Crucifixion?”

“No,” they replied together.

“You know when the Crucifixion was, of course?”

“Why—­yes,” admitted Linnet, hesitatingly.

“Christ was thirty-three years old,” said Marjorie, “so it must have been in the year 33, or the beginning of 34.”

“Of course I know Anno Domini,” said Linnet; “but I don’t always know what happened before and after.”

“Suppose we were walking in one of the excavated streets of Pompeii and I should say, ‘O, girls!  Look at that wall!’ and you should see a rude cross carved on it, what would you think?”

“I should think they knew about Christ,” answered Linnet.

The clover leaf tatting had fallen into her lap and the shuttle was on the grass.

“Yes, and is that all?”

“Why, yes,” she acknowledged.

“Pompeii wasn’t so far, so very far from Jerusalem and—­they could hear,” said Marjorie.

“And you two would pass on to a grand house with a wonderful mosaic floor and think no more about the cross.”

“I suppose we would,” said Linnet “Wouldn’t you?”

“But I should think about the cross.  I should think that the city was destroyed in 79 and be rejoiced that the inhabitants had heard of the Cross and knew its story before swift destruction overtook them.  It was destroyed about forty-five years after the Crucifixion.”

“I like to know that,” said Marjorie.  “Perhaps some of the people in it had seen St. Paul and heard him tell about the Cross.”

“I see some use in that date,” said Linnet, picking up her shuttle.

“Suppose I should tell you that once on a time a laborer would have to work fifteen years to earn enough to buy a Bible and then the Bible must be in Latin, wouldn’t you like to know when it was.”

“I don’t know when the Bible was printed in English,” confessed Marjorie.

“If you did know and knew several other things that happened about that time you would be greatly interested.  Suppose I should tell you about something that happened in England, you would care very much more if you knew about something that was linked with it in France, and in Germany.  If I say 1517 I do not arouse your enthusiasm; you don’t know what was happening in Germany then; and 1492 doesn’t remind you of anything—­”

“Yes, it does,” laughed Marjorie, “and so does 1620.”

“Down the bay on an island stand the ruins of a church, and an old lady told me it was built in 1604.  I did not contradict her, but I laughed all to myself.”

“I know enough to laugh at that,” said Linnet.