The farmer librarian, who remained half
an hour after the congregation was dismissed on Sundays to dispense
books for any that might wish them, in the room behind the church, had
been obliged to give Elsie entrance to the shelves reserved for older
people, after she had exhausted the youthful library. It is not to be
supposed, however, that by this admission Elsie was allowed to plunge
chartless into light literature. The shelves contained only books of the
most sober kind, the lightest admixture being narratives of the
persecutions of the Waldenses and stories of the Covenanting struggles.
These Elsie read and pondered with intense interest, interweaving the
scenes in her imagination with the familiar places and people round her,
and living a far-away dreamy life of her own in the forester's cozy
little nest, while her active-minded, busy-fingered mother made her
cheese and butter, and reared her poultry, and was withal so very
capable of performing her own duties, that the forester sometimes
ventured to think, when Mrs. Gray complained of Elsie's "handlessness,"
that seeing the mistress was so well able for "her own turn," it was
fortunate his little daughter chanced to be of a more contemplative
disposition.
Mrs. Gray had heard from Margery of the Sunday class which her young
mistress had opened at Kirklands, and though, as the forester's wife
remarked, "Elsie had enough and to spare of schoolin' already," yet it
would only be a suitable mark of respect to the lady of Kirklands to
send her there on Sunday afternoons; and so it happened that Elsie
became one of Grace's scholars, sitting in the little still-room on
Sunday afternoons, her large tender eyes answering in sympathetic
flashes as the young teacher talked with the little company of those
wonderful days when the Son o Man lived upon the earth, or told them
some story of the earlier times of the world, when God's voice was heard
in the beautiful garden in the cool of the day, or when he guided his
chosen people by signs and wonders.
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