listen, I can tell you another story--about a Shepherd, too. I'm sure
you would like it, if you would only come back for a little and listen,
Jean," said Grace, eagerly.

She did not venture to open the Bible, in case the little girl should
think the book would imply another course of spelling, and be roused
into immediate flight. Abandoning all her carefully arranged plans for
teaching which she had been thinking of for so long, she looked into
Geordie's eyes, which were still wandering hungrily towards the
unconquered pages of the primer, and began to tell of the Shepherd who
watched the hundred sheep in a wilderness far away in a very hot
country, where the burning sun dried up the streams and withered the
pasture, and where it was very difficult to find food for either man or
beast. And then she told of how very wise and tender this Shepherd was
with his flock, looking after their wants day and night, and taking very
special care of the silly, play-loving lambs, who did not guess what
terrible dangers they might fall into; for there were wild beasts
prowling about, ready to pounce upon them, and rushing torrents that
came suddenly from the hillsides in rainy seasons, which would have
drowned them in a minute, if the Shepherd's watchful eye had not been
there. He knew all their names, too, though sheep are so wonderfully
like each other."

"Did he though?" exclaimed Geordie. "He must have more wit than Gowrie's
shepherd, then. He has been wi' them for more than a year now, and I
dinna think he knows the one from the other so well as I do."

Little Jean seemed to have abandoned her design of immediately returning
home, and was gradually edging nearer the table, with her twinkling
black eyes fixed on Grace.