"
"Oh!" Helena said, rather startled; "you don't want me to teach him--
things like that, do you?"
"Things like what?"
"The catechism, and--to pray, and--"
Dr. Lavendar smiled. "You can teach folks to say their prayers, my
dear, but nobody can teach them to pray. Only life does that. But
David's been taught his prayers; you just let him say 'em at your
knee, that's all"
David, dismissed to the garden while his elders talked, had discovered
the rabbit-hutch, and could hardly tear himself away from it to say
good-by. But when Dr. Lavendar called out that he was going, the
little boy's heart misgave him. He came and stood by the step of the
buggy, and picked with nervous fingers at the dry mud on the wheel--
for Dr. Lavendar's buggy was not as clean as it should have been.
"Well, David?" Dr. Lavendar said cheerfully. The child with his chin
sunk on his breast said something. "What?" said Dr. Lavendar.
David mumbled a word or two in a voice that seemed to come from his
stomach; it sounded like, "Like you best." But Dr. Lavendar did not
hear it, and David ran swiftly back to the rabbits. There Helena found
him, gazing through two large tears at the opal-eyed pair behind the
wooden bars. Their white shell-like ears wavered at her step, and they
paused in their nibbling; then went on again with timid, jewel-like
glances in her direction.
Helena, at the sight of those two tears, knelt down beside the little
boy, eager to be sympathetic.
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