Chapter 3

USE OF THE KEEPSAKES.

The next day was a sorrowful one, both to the friends who went away, and to those who were left behind. The children could talk of little else than their uncle and aunt Harding. They asked their mother many questions about the journey they had begun, and the country to which they were going. When Louisa and Emma saw that their mamma was very sad, and not so ready as usual to join in their talk, they did not tease her, as some thoughtless children would have done, but each chose for herself a pleasant and quiet employment. Louisa began to arrange the furniture in her baby-house, and Emma brought a piece of brown silk from her drawer of treasures, and set about making a cover for her new Bible.

"Why, Emma, what are you about?" cried Louisa, after watching her sister for a moment; "surely you are not going to use that beautiful book?"

"Yes, I am," said Emma, quietly; "I mean to read a little in it every day. Ah! I see that you think it will soon be torn and soiled; but I assure you I intend to be very careful; and look, what a nice cover this will make!"

"I am afraid," said Louisa, laughing, "you will never be careful as long as you live. To think of so soon beginning to use that handsome book! I have made up my mind to read a chapter every day, but not out of my new Bible. I think the old one, that lies in the school-room, will do just as well."

"So it would," returned Emma; "and I thought of that myself last night, when aunt Harding told us how much she wished us to be good, and to love the Scriptures: but then the school-room Bible is not always in its place, and that might sometimes hinder me from reading at all. Now I shall keep this book in my little drawer in our room, where I can find it in a minute."

"You must please yourself, I suppose," said Louisa; "but I will ask mamma whether it is better to use aunt Harding's Bible or the old one."

Mrs. Western heard what her little girl had to say, but did not give just the answer that Louisa expected. "You are right," she said, "in supposing that it does not signify whether you read in an old Bible or a new one. It is from the divine blessing upon what we read, and not from the book itself, that we must look for benefit to our souls. If you pray for this blessing with all your heart, you will find the way of salvation as plainly declared in the worn-out school-room Bible as in your aunt Harding's keepsake, with its purple binding and shining gilt leaves. But yet I approve of Emma's wish to use her new Bible from this time, and advise you to follow her example. For though it ought to be our great delight to read the Scriptures, yet we have such sinful hearts, so ready to put off doing what is right for any poor excuse, that even such a little thing as having to look for the Bible, when it happens to be mislaid, will be likely to prevent you from reading it so constantly as you intend."

To this Louisa made no reply. She had wrapped up her beautiful book in silver paper, and laid it carefully in a box, under lock and key, and she did not mean to disturb it, except perhaps now and then for a few moments, that it might be looked at and admired. As for Emma, she went on fitting the brown silk cover as neatly as she could; and hoping that, if she prayed for the divine blessing, as her mother and aunt had told her, she might learn from her precious Bible the way to be good and happy.