Nothing since her mother went away comforted her like her boarding-school.
During one heart-opening twilight she confided to Marion about casting lots in the Bible to find out if she would ever go to boarding-school.
If she were shocked she kept the shock out of her voice. She told Roger afterward she was almost too shocked to speak.
“The queerest thing that meant nothing: ‘And a cubit on the one side and a cubit on the other side.’”
“I am glad you found that,” said Marion, “I think God wanted to help you by giving you that.”
“It doesn’t sound like a Bible verse; it is just nothing,” persisted Judith.
“God’s words can never be ‘just nothing.’ Those words were something to somebody, and they are a great deal to me. Do you remember something Christ says about a cubit?”
“He said this: _Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit to his stature?_ You were taking thought to add something to your life. Your thought-taking has not done it,” said Marion, thinking that her own thought-taking had added no cubit to her own life.
“No, indeed; I never should have thought of the parsonage boarding-school. Who did think of it besides you, Miss Marion?”
“Several people who love you. If you had never thought of it, it would have been thought of for you. In that same talk Christ told the people: Your heavenly father knoweth that ye have need of all these things: _for_ your heavenly Father knoweth; that’s why we do not have to think about the cubits. I think I’ll give Roger ‘_For_ your heavenly Father’ for a text.”
“I am so glad,” said Judith, with radiant eyes, “I love that ‘cubit’ now.”
“So do I. I will certainly ask Roger to preach about our cubit.”
“But don’t let him put me in,” protested Judith. “I should look conscious so everybody would know I was the girl. Jean Draper will be sure to know.”
“He will not let it be a girl. He will make it somebody who was superstitious, and anxious, and did not trust God, nor know how to learn his will. Trust Roger for that. I always know when he puts people in, for we talk it over together; he puts me in so often that I am accustomed to being made a text of; and his own mistakes and failures are in all the time.”
“I thought mine were,” acknowledged Roger’s attentive and appreciative listener.