“Do you see,” she said, turning eagerly, “that these are Bible references on each tablet?  Wouldn’t it be interesting to know what they selected as the scene to especially mark this place?”

Mr. Roberta swung a camp-chair from his arm, planted it firmly in the ground, and drew a Bible from his pocket.

“Miss Mitchell,” he said, “suppose you sit down here in this road, leading from Jerusalem to Bethany, and tell us what is going on just now in Bethany, while Miss Shipley and I supply you with chapter and verse.”

“I am not very familiar with the text-book,” Eurie said.  “If you are really in the village yourselves you might possibly inquire of the inhabitants before I could find the account.”  But she took the chair and the Bible.

“Look at Matthew xxi. 17, Eurie,” Flossy said, stooping over the tablet, and Eurie read: 

“’And he left them, and went out of the city into Bethany; and he lodged there.’”

“That was Jesus, wasn’t it?  Then he went this way, this very road, Eurie, where you are sitting!” It was certainly very fascinating.

“And stopped at the house on which you have your hand, perhaps,” Mr. Roberts said, smiling at her eager face.

“That might have been Simon’s house, for instance.”

“Did he live in Bethany?  I don’t know anything about these things.”

“Eurie, look if you can find anything about him.  The next reference is Matthew xxvi.”

And again Eurie read: 

“‘Now when Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper.’”

“The very place!” Flossy said, again.  “Oh, I want so much to know what happened then!”

“Won’t Miss Mitchell read it to us?” Mr. Roberts said, and he arranged his shawl along the ground for seats.  “Since we have really come to Bethany, let us have the full benefit of it.  Now, Miss Shipley, take a seat, and we will give ourselves up to the pleasure of being with Jesus in Simon’s house, and looking on at the scene.”

So they disposed of themselves on the grass, and Eurie, hardly able to restrain a laugh over the novelty of the situation, and yet wonderfully fascinated by the whole scene, read to them the tender story of the loving woman with her sweet-smelling ointment, growing more and more interested, until in the closing verse her voice was full of feeling.

“’Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done be told as a memorial of her.’”

“Think of that!” said Mr. Roberts.  “And here are we, eighteen hundred years afterward, sitting here in Bethany and talking of that same woman still!  Miss Mitchell, are you going to do something for Christ that shall be talked over a thousand years from now?  There is a chance for undying fame.”

“Doubtful!” Eurie said, but she did not smile; her face was grave.

“Or, better still, are you going to do such work for Christ that, hundreds of years after, your influence will be silently living and working out its fruit in human hearts?”