When Eloise spoke in the ravine of talking with her grandfather,it was because for a few days she had been trying to make up her mind to an interview with him.A fortnight ago she would have felt this to be impossible;but subtle changes had been going on in herself,and,she thought,in him.If her mother would undertake the interview now and take that stand with Mr.Evringham which Eloise felt that self-respect demanded,the girl would gladly escape it;but there was no prospect of such a thing.Mrs.Evringham was only too glad to benefit by her father-in-law's modified mood,to glide along the surface of things and wait--Eloise knew it,knew it every day,in moments when her cheeks flushed hot--for Dr.Ballard to throw the handkerchief.
The girl wished to talk with Mr.Evringham without her mother's knowledge,and the prospect was a dreaded ordeal.She felt that they had won his contempt,and she feared the loss of her own self-control when she should come to touch upon the sore spots.
"What would you do,Jewel,"she asked the next morning,after they had read the lesson;"what would you do if you were afraid of somebody?""I wouldn't be,"returned the child quickly.
"Well,I am.Now what am I going to do about it?"Anna Belle,who always gave unwinking attention to the lesson,was in Jewel's lap,and the child twisted out the in-turning morocco foot as she spoke.
"Why,I'd know that one thought of God couldn't be afraid of another,"she replied in the conclusive tone to which Eloise could never grow accustomed.
"Oh,Jewel,child,"the girl said impatiently,"we'd be sorry to think most of the people we know are thoughts of God.""That's because you get the error man mixed up with the real one.
Mother explains that to me when we ride in cable cars and places where we see error people with sorry faces.There's a real man,a real thought of God,behind every one of them;and when you remember to think right about people every minute,you are doing them good.Did you say you're afraid of somebody?""Yes,and that somebody is a man whom I must talk to.""Then begin right away to know every minute that the real man isn't anybody to be afraid of,for God made him,and God has only loving thoughts;and of course you must be loving all the time.It'll be just as easyby the time you come to it,cousin Eloise!"The girl often asked herself in these days why she should begin to feel unreasonably hopeful and lighter hearted.Her mother no longer complained of her moods.Mrs.Evringham laid the becoming change in her daughter's expression to the girl's happiness in discovering that she did reciprocate Dr.Ballard's evident sentiments.