n the Bible?"
"I don't remember"--said Daisy.
The woman got up, went into the cottage, and brought out a large print
Testament which she put into Daisy's hands, open at the fourteenth
chapter of John. Daisy read with curious interest the words to which she
was directed.
"Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my
words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make
our abode with him."
Daisy looked at the promise, with her heart beating under troublesome
doubts; when the voice of Juanita broke in upon them by saying,
tenderly,
"Does my little lady keep the Lord's words?"
Down went the book, and the tears rushed into Daisy's eyes.
"Don't call me so," she cried,--"I am Daisy Randolph;--and I do want to
keep his words!--and--I don't know how."
"What troubles my love?" said the woman, in low tones of a voice that
was always sweet. "Do not she know what the words of the Lord be?"
"Yes,"--said Daisy, hardly able to make herself understood,--"but--"
"Then do 'em," said Juanita. "The way is straight. What he say, do."
"But suppose----" said Daisy.
"Suppose what? What do my love suppose?"
"Wouldn't it make it right, if it would do a great deal of good?"
This confused sentence Juanita pondered over.
"What does my love mean?"
"If it would do a great deal of good--wouldn't that make it right to do
something?"
"Right to do something that the Lord say _not_ do?"
"Yes."
"If you love Jesus, you not talk so," said Juanita sorrowfully. But that
made Daisy give way altogether.
"O I do love him!--I do love him!" she cried;--"but I don't know what to
do." And tears came in a torrent. Juanita was watchful and thoughtful.
When Daisy had very soon checked herself, she said in the same low,
gentle way in which she had before spoken, "What do the Lord say--to do
that some good thing,--or to keep his words?"
"To keep his words."
"Then keep 'em--and the Lord will do the good thing himself; that same
or another. He can do what he please; and he tell you, only keep his
words. He want you to shew you love him--and he tell you how."
Daisy sat quite still to let the tears pass away and the struggle in her
heart grow calm; then when she could safely she looked up. She met
Juanita's eye. It was fixed on her.
"Is the way straight now?" she asked. Daisy nodded, with a little bit of
a smile on her poor little lips.
"But there is trouble in the way?" said Jua
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