anging for more garden work to be done; then
lunching together at the hotel, for so he persuaded her, and going on
with their operations afterwards. At tea time Matilda went back to the
parsonage alone; Norton said he was tired and sleepy and did not want
to hear reading, but he would come to breakfast again.

David was not pale but flushed now, with excited eyes. All Mr.
Richmond's talk and manner at table were kindly and soothing as
possible; and Matilda could see that he liked David and that David
liked him; but the look of the latter puzzled her. It came from
disturbance so much deeper than her little head had ever known.
Immediately after tea the study lamp was lit and the books were opened.

"What have you read to-day, Master Bartholomew?" Mr. Richmond asked.

"Just those two chapters," said the boy.

"Of Luke?"

"Yes, sir. Mr. Richmond, those people, Zechariah and Simeon and the
rest, they were Jews?"

"Yes."

"And they kept the law of Moses?"

"Faithfully."

"And--they thought that Jesus was the Promised One?"

"They did not _think_--they knew, by the teaching of the Spirit of God."

"But," said David, "the writer of this did not wish to discredit the
law of Moses?"

"Not at all. Let us go on with our his story."

The reading began again and went on steadily for some hours. As before,
David wanted to verify everything by references to the prophets. His
voice trembled sometimes; but he kept as close to business as possible.
The first chapters of Matthew excited him very much, with their
declarations of things done "that the scriptures might be fulfilled;"
and the sermon on the mount seemed to stagger the boy. He was silent a
while when it had come to his turn to read; and at last looking up, he
said,

"If people took _this_ for a rule of life, everything in the world
would have to be turned round?"

"Precisely," said Mr. Richmond. "And so the word says--'If any man be
in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold,
all things are become new.'"

"Do you think anybody really lives like this?"

"O yes," said Mr. Richmond.

"I never saw anybody who did," said David; "nor anything like
it;--unless," he added looking up, "it is Matilda there."

Matilda started and flushed. Mr. Richmond's eyes fell on her with a
very moved pleasure in them. Neither spoke, and David went on with the
reading. He was greatly struck again, in another way, with the
quotation from Isaiah in the t