"It is wonderful," Hazel commented. "I have something in this parcel besides the pinafore. Come and sit on my knee and see if you can untie the string."
Presently the child was seated in Hazel’s lap, contentedly eating chocolates. He was a pretty, fair-haired, blue-eyed boy, and Hazel felt real affection for the little fellow. Beside her innate love of children, she felt a proprietary interest in Bobbie, whose life she had undoubtedly saved. Mrs. Boutcher regarded the pair with admiration and maternal pride, her head on one side, a steaming kettle in her hand, poised for discharging.
"Look at that, now!" she exclaimed, turning to Paul for sympathy, "and him so shy as he’ll run away when the minister shows his face at the door, as if it was the bogeyman’s." She approached Paul and lowered her voice. "You’d never guess, not to look at him," she said confidentially, "as it’s but three months ago as he was rescued from out the Valley of the Shadow. Dear me," she continued, shaking her head, "yes, it was a mercy—not vouchsafed to all of us neither. There was Mrs. Jones’s now—she’s moved since, and it’s no wonder—her little boy fell into the water, just as it might be my Bobbie, and he crossed the River," she whispered hoarsely.
"The child could swim? That was fortunate."
"Law bless you, no, sir. Swim? He went down like a stone in the middle of the stream."
"I understood you to say he crossed the river," Paul explained, nonplussed.
"The Jordan, sir," Mrs. Boutcher returned in a hushed voice, somewhat shocked at the practical way in which her guest interpreted her words—it was not clear to her whether in ignorance or wanton inadvertency—"the River as we must all cross some day, to reach the Golden Shore."
"You should hear our minister speak, sir," Mrs. Boutcher went on. ’"E just draws the tears to your eyes. But you don’t attend our chapel?"
"No," Paul admitted, "but Miss Le Mesurier often takes me to church. We have a clever preacher there."
Hazel, catching her name, looked up. "Yes, Mrs. Boutcher," she said, "it is so nice. I used to go very seldom: the boys were often lazy or careless, and sometimes really tired after their week’s work. Mother, of course, could not go so far."