Me and Nobbles Part 34

'Does blessed mean happy?' asked True.

'Yes.'

'I didn't think I'd ever be happy again when mother went away, but I feel a little better now. Will you take us one day to see her grave, or is it too far?'

'I think we must manage it one day, dear,' said Lady Isobel drawing the little motherless girl near her. 'We might go by train a part of the way.'

'I would like to see her grave very much,' said Bobby, 'because father went to put my tex' upon it. He liked my tex' very much.'

'I think we all like it, Bobby.'

'I wonder which is G.o.d's favourite text in the Bible,' said True.

Lady Isobel was silent; the children sometimes puzzled her.

'G.o.d never makes any faverits,' said Bobby. 'My old nurse telled me that once. He loves ev'rybodies and all alike, doesn't he, Aunt Is'bel?'

Then without waiting for her to reply he proceeded:

'I try to love ev'rybodies alike, but I love G.o.d first, and then my father.'

'And who next?' asked True curiously.

'I finks,' said Bobby, hesitating, 'truthfully, I finks I loves n.o.bbles next best.'

'I'm sure you oughtn't to,' said True; 'he's just a stick.'

Bobby shook his head. 'I loves you, Aunt Is'bel, and Master Mortimer, and True, but n.o.bbles comed to me first, and I couldn't stop loving him. He's a kind of part of me, you see, and ev'ryfing I does he does too.'

'He's only a stick,' repeated True.

'Who saved father's life?' said Bobby with sudden warmth.

'Well,' said True, slowly, 'it was you who put n.o.bbles on the ice.'

'Yes,' said Bobby, 'it was what I'd been longing and wanting to do, and I was always finking and finking how it could be done, and then all of a sudden it comed, and who saved father's life? Why, me and n.o.bbles.'

True was crushed. Lady Isobel said softly:

'Shall we repeat the text together, children, in this old Bible, and ask G.o.d to make us not only love it ourselves, but pa.s.s it on to those who do not know how they can have a right to enter in through the gates into the City?'

'Are there many bodies that don't know that?' questioned Bobby.

'A great, great many. Some who miss the happiness that G.o.d means them to have in this world by not knowing it.'

'We must try and tell them,' said Bobby earnestly. 'It's a pity if they don't understand prop'ly.'

Then slowly and softly the children repeated their text after Lady Isobel:

'Blessed are they that wash their robes in the blood of the Lamb, that they may have right to the tree of life, and enter in through the gates into the City.'

FINIS.