with dainty care. She sat down by the child and began a movement towards undressing her.
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"Shall I say my prayers to you," said Tina, "before I go to bed?"
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"Certainly," said Miss Mehitable; "by all means."
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"They are rather long," said the child, apologetically, "that is, if I say all that Harry does. Harry said mamma wanted us to say them all every night. It takes some time."
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"O, by all means say all," said Miss Mehitable.
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Tina kneeled down by her and put her hands in hers, and said the Lord's Prayer, and the psalm, "The Lord is my shepherd." She had a natural turn for elocution, this little one, and spoke her words with a grace and an apparent understanding not ordinary in childhood.
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"There's a hymn, besides," she said. "It belongs to the prayer."
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"Well, let us have that," said Miss Mehitable.
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 | | "One there is above all others
Well deserves the name of Friend;
His is love beyond a brother's,
Costly, free, and knows no end."
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She had an earnest, half-heroic way of repeating, and as she gazed into her listener's eyes she perceived, by a subtile-in-stinct, that what she was saying affected her deeply. She stopped, wondering.
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"Go on, my love," said Miss Mehitable.
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Tina continued, with enthusiasm, feeling that she was making an impression on her auditor:
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| | "Which of all our friends, to save us,
Could or would have shed his blood?
But the Saviour died to have us
Reconciled in him to God.
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| | "When he lived on earth abaséd,
Friend of sinners was his name;
Now, above all glory raiséd,
He rejoiceth in the same."
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