The two girls sat and looked at it and talked about it for a few minutes, and then Tiny said wistfully: "Will you show me now how you make up them nice words?"
"Oh, it's easy enough if you know the letters; but you must learn the letters first," said Polly; and she proceeded to tell Tiny the name of each; and the little girl had the satisfaction of knowing now that she had remembered them quite correctly, and that G O D did spell God, as she had surmised.
She was not long now in putting other words together; and before she went home she was able to spell out the first two lines of the printed page, for they were all easy words, and intended for beginners.
What a triumph it was to Tiny to be able to read out to the fisherman's family what she had learned on the sands that day. She was allowed to have the candle all to herself after supper, and they sat round the table looking at each other in wondering amazement as her little finger travelled along the page, and she spelt out the wonderful news, "'God is good to all: He loves both boys and girls.' It's true, Dick, what I told you, ain't it?" she said, in a tone of delighted satisfaction.
Dick scratched his head, and looked round at his father, wondering what he would think or say. For a minute or two the fisherman smoked his pipe in silence. At length, taking it from his mouth, he said, in a slow, meditative fashion: "Well, little 'un, I s'pose if it's printed that way it's true; and if it is, why I s'pose we've all got a share in that 'Star of Peace' we was talking about to-day."
Tiny did not quite follow his train of thought; but she nodded her head, and then proceeded to tell them what she had heard about the picture, and the conclusion she and Polly had arrived at upon the subject--that Jesus, the kind, loving man of the picture, had come to show them how kind God was to them.
Winter around Bermuda Point was at all times a dreary season, and the only thing its few inhabitants could hope for was that its reign might be as short as possible. A fine, calm autumn was hailed as a special boon from heaven by the fisher-folk all round the coast, and more especially by the lonely dwellers at the Point.
A fine autumn enabled Coomber to go out in his boat until the time for shooting wild fowl began, and the children could play on the sands, or gather samphire, instead of being penned up in the house half the time. But when the weather was wild and wet, and the salt marshes lay under water, that meant little food and much discomfort, frequent quarrels, and much bitterness to the fisherman's family.