Mr. Evringham shook his head.  “They probably wouldn’t make you open your eyes as wide as I do mine; you’re used to them.  They’re Christian Science stories.  Your mother has been treating my rheumatism, Jewel.  What do you think of that?”

“Oh, I’m glad,” replied the child heartily, “because then you’ve asked her to.”

“How do you know I have?”

“Because she wouldn’t treat you if you hadn’t, and mother says when people are willing to ask for it, then that’s the beginning of everything good for them.  You know, grandpa,” Jewel leaned toward him lovingly and added softly, “you know even you have to meet mortal mind.”

“I shouldn’t wonder,” responded the broker dryly.

“And it’s so proud, and hates to give up so,” said Jewel.

“I’m an old dog,” returned Mr. Evringham.  “Teaching me new tricks is going to be no joke, but your mother undertakes it cheerfully.  I’m reading that book, ‘Science and Health;’ and she says I may have to read it through three times before I get the hang of it.”

“I don’t believe you will, grandpa, because it’s just as plain,” said the child.

“You’ll help me, Jewel?”

“Yes, indeed I will;” the little girl’s face was radiant.  “And won’t Mr. Reeves be glad to see you coming to church with us?”

“I don’t know whether I shall ever make Mr. Reeves glad in that way or not.  I’m doing this to try to understand something of what you and your mother are so sure of, and what has made a man of your father.  More than that, if there is any eternity for us, I propose to stick to you through it, and it may be more convenient to study here than off in some dim no-man’s-land in the hereafter.  If I remain ignorant, who can tell but the Power that Is will whisk you away from me by and by.”

Jewel gathered the speaker’s meaning very well, and now she smiled at him with the look he loved best; all her heart in her eyes.  “He wouldn’t.  God isn’t anybody to be afraid of,” she said.

“Why, it tells us all through the Bible to fear God.”

“Yes, of course it tells us to fear to trouble the One who loves us the best of all.  Just think how even you and I would fear to hurt one another, and God is keeping us alive with his love!”

Half an hour afterward their horses cantered up the drive toward the house.  Mrs. Evringham was seated on the piazza, sewing.  Her husband had sent the summer wardrobe promptly, and she wore now a thin blue gown that looked charmingly comfortable.

“Genuine!” thought her father-in-law, as he came up the steps and met a smiling welcome from her clear eyes.  He liked the simple manner in which she dressed her hair.  He liked her complexion, and carriage, and voice.

“I don’t know but that you have the better part here on the piazza, it is so warm,” he said, “but I have been thinking of you rather remorsefully this afternoon, Julia.  These excursions of Jewel’s and mine are growing to seem rather selfish.  Have you ever learned to ride?”