so, and would perhaps have obeyed her as readily.  But Daisy offered no words that required obedience, except those she read out of the Book; and Molly listened to them as if it had been the voice of an angel.  She was learning to read herself; really learning:  making advances every day that shewed diligent interest; and the interest was fed by those words she daily listened to out of the same book.  Daisy had got a large-print Testament for her at Crum Elbow; and a new life had begun for the cripple.  The rose-bush and the geranium flourished brilliantly, for the frosts had not come yet; and they were a good setting forth of how things were going in the house.

One lovely October afternoon, when air and sky were a breath and vision of delight, after a morning spent in dressing and practising, Daisy went to Molly.  She went directly after luncheon.  She had given Molly her lesson; and then Daisy sat with a sober little face, her finger between the leaves of the Bible, before beginning her accustomed reading.  Molly eyed her wistfully.

“About the crowns and the white dresses,” she suggested.

“Shall I read about those?” said Daisy.  And Molly nodded.  And with her little face exceedingly grave and humble, Daisy read the seventh chapter of the Revelation, and then the twenty-first chapter, and the twenty-second; and then she sat with her finger between the leaves as before, looking out of the window.

“Will they all be sealed?” said Molly, breaking the silence.

“Yes.”

“What is that?”

“I don’t know exactly.  It will be a mark of all the people that love Jesus.”

“A mark in their foreheads?”

“Yes, it says so.”

“What mark?”

“I don’t know, Molly; it says, ‘His name shall be in their foreheads.’” And Daisy’s eyes became full of tears.

“How will that be?”

“I don’t know, Molly; it don’t tell.  I suppose that everybody that looks at them will know in a minute that they belong to Jesus.”

Daisy’s hand went up and brushed across her eyes; and then did it again.

“Do they belong to him?” asked Molly.

“O yes!  Here it is—­don’t you remember?—­’they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.’”

“So they are white, then?” said Molly.

“Yes.  And his mark is on them.”

“I wish,” said the cripple slowly and thoughtfully,—­“I wish ’twas on me.  I do!”

I do not think Daisy could speak at this.  She shut her book and got up and looked at Molly, who had put her head down on her folded arms; and then she opened Molly’s Testament and pressed her arm to make her look.  Still Daisy did not speak; she had laid her finger under some of the words she had been reading; but when Molly raised her head she remembered the sense of them could not be taken by the poor woman’s eyes.  So Daisy read them, looking with great tenderness in the cripple’s face—­