“Oh, ay, I’m thinkin’ I have.  But it was in the Auld Testament they were readin’ when I was at the school.  I mind there was a right fine story about a herd-laddie killin’ a big giant, that one o’ the laddies telt me once.  You’ve heard it many a time from me, Jean.”

“Ah, yes, I know that story too,” Grace replied, brightening, as if a glimmer of light had come to her in her perplexity.  “And if you will listen, I can tell you another story—­about a Shepherd, too.  I’m sure you would like it, if you would only come back for a little and listen, Jean,” said Grace, eagerly.

She did not venture to open the Bible, in case the little girl should think the book would imply another course of spelling, and be roused into immediate flight.  Abandoning all her carefully arranged plans for teaching which she had been thinking of for so long, she looked into Geordie’s eyes, which were still wandering hungrily towards the unconquered pages of the primer, and began to tell of the Shepherd who watched the hundred sheep in a wilderness far away in a very hot country, where the burning sun dried up the streams and withered the pasture, and where it was very difficult to find food for either man or beast.  And then she told of how very wise and tender this Shepherd was with his flock, looking after their wants day and night, and taking very special care of the silly, play-loving lambs, who did not guess what terrible dangers they might fall into; for there were wild beasts prowling about, ready to pounce upon them, and rushing torrents that came suddenly from the hillsides in rainy seasons, which would have drowned them in a minute, if the Shepherd’s watchful eye had not been there.  He knew all their names, too, though sheep are so wonderfully like each other.”

“Did he though?” exclaimed Geordie.  “He must have more wit than Gowrie’s shepherd, then.  He has been wi’ them for more than a year now, and I dinna think he knows the one from the other so well as I do.”

Little Jean seemed to have abandoned her design of immediately returning home, and was gradually edging nearer the table, with her twinkling black eyes fixed on Grace.

“But I was going to tell you what happened to one of the little lambs in spite of the Shepherd’s watchful care,” Grace continued, feeling inspirited by the growing interest of her audience.

“Eh, but I hope none o’ the wild beasts ye spoke o’ got hold of it,” said Geordie, drawing a long breath.

“Well, there’s no saying what might have happened, but for the Good Shepherd.  For the little lamb got lost—­lost among bleak, sandy hills, where it could find no green blade to eat, and got very hungry and footsore.  It could hear no kind shepherd’s voice that it used to love to listen to in happier days, but only terrible sounds like the bark of wolves, coming nearer, and lions prowling about when it began to get dark.”

“Puir lambie!” murmured Jean, whose face now rested on her little fat hands, while, leaning on the table, she looked up in Grace’s face; “it must surely ha’e been very frightened,” she added, in a compassionate tone; for she knew that she did not like to cross the turf in front of the cottage, after dark, without Geordie’s protecting hand.