She seemed to shrink into herself; and, though the smile still trembled on her lips, there was a hovering of distress over her fine brows.
"We will feel the same!" declared Allison. "If you feel that way so much, we'll manage somehow to be loyal to what you think. You always do it for us; and, if we can't be as big as you are, we haven't got the gang spirit. It's teamwork, Leslie. Cloudy goes to football games, and makes fudge for our friends; and we go to church and help her keep Sunday her way. See?"
"Why, of course! Sure!" said Leslie, half bewildered. "I didn't mean not to, of course, if Cloudy likes such things; only she'll have to teach me how, for I never did like those things."
"Well, I say, let's get Cloudy to spend the first Sunday telling us how she thinks Sunday ought to be kept, and why. Is that a bargain, Cloudy?"
"But I'm afraid I wouldn't be wise enough to explain," faltered Julia Cloud, distress in her voice. "I could maybe find something to read to you about it."
"Oh, preserve us, Cloudy! We don't want any old dissertations out of a book. If we can't have your own thoughts that make you live it the way you do, we haven't any use for any of it. See?"
Julia Cloud forced a trembling little smile, and said she saw, and would do her best; but her heart sank at the prospect. What a responsibility to be put upon her ignorant shoulders. The Lord's Sabbath in her bungling hands to make or to mar for these two young souls! She must pray. Oh, she must pray continually that she might be led!
And then there came swiftly to her mind one of the verses that had become dear and familiar to her through the years as she read and reread her Bible, "And when they bring you unto the synagogues, and unto magistrates, and powers, take ye no thought how or what thing ye shall answer, or what ye shall say; for the Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same hour what ye ought to say."
This was not exactly being brought before magistrates; but it was being challenged for a reason for the hope that was in her, and perhaps she could claim the promise. Surely, if the Lord wanted her to defend His Sabbath before these two, He would give her wise words in which to speak. Anyhow, she would just have to trust Him, for she had none of her own.