“Bless the child! what do you take me for?” and the major laughed heartily as he spoke; then, with a twinkle in his eye, he went on gravely,—­

“I shall begin to think that you are pious if you don’t take care.  What else do you do besides sing hymns?”

“I have a Bible,” said Milly, solemnly, “and I just love it.”

“And what makes you love such a dry book as the Bible?  You can’t understand a word of it.”

“Oh, I can, Major Lovell, it’s beautiful.  I love nurse to read and read it to me.  It tells about Jesus, you know, and I love Jesus, and He loves me.  And it has such nice stories in it.”

Major Lovell gave a long, low whistle.

“Ah!” he said, shaking his head comically at the little figure walking by his side, “I’m very much afraid you may be at the bottom of it all.  Do you read the Bible to your uncle?  Do you tell him that he has been wasting his life and not fulfilling the end for which he was created, in fact, that he is a wicked sinner?  For that has been the substance of his talk with me this morning!”

“Uncle Edward is a very good man,” Milly replied, warmly.  “I don’t know what you mean, Major Lovell; don’t you read the Bible?”

“What will you think of me if I tell you I don’t?”

“Perhaps you know it all by heart?  I expect that is why.”

“I rather think I don’t.  You must not begin to catechise me too severely.  Who has brought you up in this pious fashion?”

“I’m not pious.  You said they were horrid people.  But I thought all the grown-up people read the Bible, except people like Jack.”

“Who is Jack?”

“He was a prodigal son, one of God’s prodigal sons.”

“And what are they, may I ask?”

Milly did not answer for a minute, then she stopped short, and said very solemnly, raising her large dark eyes to the major’s face,—­

“I wonder if you’re a prodigal son.  Uncle Edward said there were some rich ones.  Have you run away from God, Major Lovell?”

“Oh, come now,” said the major, pinching her cheek good-naturedly; “I didn’t bargain for this when I came out with you.  You must keep your sermons for some one else.  Come along to the stables with me, and I will give you a ride.”

In an instant Milly’s gravity disappeared, and a little time afterwards she was laughing gleefully as she was being trotted round the stable-yard on a large bay mare; but she said to her nurse when she came in,—­

“Major Lovell is very nice, but very funny, and I can’t always understand his talk, he says such difficult things.”

CHAPTER VIII.

“HE AROSE AND CAME TO HIS FATHER.”

Major Lovell stayed a week, and Sir Edward seemed the better for his company, as far as his bodily health was concerned.  But at heart he was very wretched, and his cousin’s influence was not the sort to help him.