I'll give this to either of
you ladies now, and I'll never ask to lay eyes on it again."
Cousin Bessie took them from her saying,
"You look better without them, Girly," then changing her tone to one
of gentle, solicitous enquiry, she asked the pert little stranger,
"Do you ever go to church, Girly, or say any prayers?"
The child's face became shadowed for a moment and her lips quivered.
When she spoke, her voice had lost its bright carelessness, it was low
and broken.
"I'll tell you the truth ma'am, if I died for it. P'raps you'll think
me awful wicked but I'll tell you, now you asked me. One Sunday
morning I was walking past the big church in the far end of the town,
an' the bells began to ring and ring, an' says I, 'I think I'll just
go in an' watch them prayin' but when I peeped in no one was inside. I
turned to the man that pulled the ropes an' asked him when it 'ud
begin. 'In fifteen minutes' says he, like a growl, 'this is the first
bell.' So I ran back to our house, for father and I had a room then
with the Grimes, an' I got some water in the little basin an' washed
my face an' hands good an' clean. I brushed my hair down an' took out
my green shawl that I keep clean an' whole for sometimes, an' put it
on. I got back in lots of time to the church an' crep' into one of the
big seats, waitin' for the music to begin. In a few minutes, along
came a grand little lady, all dressed in velvet, with yellow hair and
a big bonnet, an' a gentleman with her, an' she stood at the door of
the pew an' beckoned me out.
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