? He would have her over sometime
for a day and they would chatter in French. Perhaps he had better brush
up his French a little. Then he smiled, remembering she had called
herself stupid, and he was indignant that anyone should pronounce her
dumb.

CHAPTER VII

ABOUT A GOWN

Saturday evening was already quiet at the Leveretts'. Elizabeth had been
brought up to regard it as the beginning of the Sabbath instead of the
end of the week. People were rather shocked then when you said Sunday,
and quite forgot the beautiful significance of the Lord's Day. Aunt
Priscilla still believed in the words of the Creation: that the evening
and the morning were the first day. In Elizabeth's early married life
she had kept it rigorously. All secular employments had been put by, and
the children had studied and recited the catechism. But as they changed
into men and women other things came between. Then Mr. Leverett grew
"lax" and strayed off--after other gods, she thought at first.

He softened noticeably. He had a pitiful side for the poor and all those
in trouble. Elizabeth declared he used no judgment or discrimination.

He opened the old Bible and put his finger on a verse: "While we have
time let us do good unto all men; and especially unto them that are of
the household of faith."

"You see," he said gravely, "the household of faith isn't put first, it
is 'all men.'"

She was reading the Bible, not as a duty but a delight, skipping about
for the sweetness of it. And she found many things that her duty reading
had overlooked.

The children did not repeat the catechism any more. She had been
considering whether it was best to set Doris at it; but Doris knew her
own catechism, and Cousin Winthrop was a Churchman, so perhaps it wasn't
wise to meddle. She took Doris to church with her.

Now, on Saturday evening work was put away. Warren was trying to read
"Paradise Lost." He had parsed out of it at school. Now and then he
dropped into the very heart of things, but he had not a poetical
temperament. His father enjoyed it very much, and was quite a reader of
Milton's prose works. Betty had strayed off into history. Doris sat
beside Uncle Leverett with her arms on his knee, and looked into the
fire. What were they doing back in Old Boston? Aunt Elizabeth had
already condemned the fairy stories as untrue, and therefore falsehoods,
so Doris never mentioned them. The child, with her many changes and
gentle nature, had deve