Lady Woodley took the old black-covered Bible, and finding two of the
verses in S. James about the government of the tongue, desired Lucy
to learn them by heart before she went out of the house; and the
little girl sat down with them in the window-seat, in a cross
impatient mood, very unfit for learning those sacred words. "She had
done no harm," she thought; "she could not help it if the young
gentleman would talk to her!"
So there she sat, with the Bible in her lap, alone, for Lady Woodley
was so harassed and unwell, in consequence of her anxieties, that
Rose had persuaded her to go and lie down on her bed, since it would
be better for her not to try to see Edmund till the promised
protection had arrived, lest suspicion should be excited. Rose was
busy about her household affairs; Eleanor, a handy little person, was
helping her; and Walter and Charles were gone out to gather apples
for a pudding which she had promised them.
Lucy much wished to be with them; and after a long brooding over her
ill-temper, it began to wear out, not to be conquered, but to depart
of itself; she thought she might as well learn her lesson and have
done with it; so by way of getting rid of the task, not of profiting
by the warning it conveyed, she hurried through the two verses ending
with--"Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth!"
As soon as she could say them perfectly, she raced upstairs, and into
her mother's room, gave her the book, and repeated them at her
fastest pace.
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