Chapter XXVI: Worth While

MARY, Cecil, Tom and Nancy were together in the cosy room where there always seemed a bright bit of fire, and a tidy table and a warm welcome.

Mary, for once, sat muffled in a shawl in the arm-chair, and the rest gathered round her, glad to make her welcome to their circle, after her enforced absence of two days in bed with a bad cold.

"Now we are complete!" said Nancy comfortably.

"Yes; I would not have believed that one person being away would make such a difference," said Cecil, looking round the room reflectively.

Tom did not add his quota of praise, but he looked very contented, and after a few moments said, smiling, "I expect you've had some thoughts up there, Moll, that would do us good! It's been mighty dry down here!"

She put out her hand and touched her brother's softly.

"I have chiefly been learning a hymn!" she said.

"A hymn!" echoed Cecil. "Whatever for?"

"To have as 'a possession,'" said Mary. "You can't think how the Psalms I can say, and the hymns I have committed to memory, freshen me up if I am ill, and are so comforting to repeat to people in trouble."

"I never thought of that," said little Nancy.

"And what was your hymn?" asked Tom.

"A very simple one, but holding in every verse a magnificent secret!"

Cecil turned round and gazed at her.

"What?" he asked.

"'Let Jesus Christ be praised!'"

"How is that such a wonderful secret?" said Tom.

"Just this," she answered earnestly, "that if in every circumstance of life, in every difficulty, danger or fear, we can claim all that is stored up for us in that wonderful name Jesus, we have solace, strength, victory assured to us. I know it, dears, and so will you, if you will believe it."

The room got darker, and the silence was unbroken for some time. Mary's voice had almost startled them with its fervour.

"What is the hymn called?" asked Cecil presently.

"The first verse is:"

"When morning gilds the skies,
My heart awaking cries,
May Jesus Christ be praised
Alike in work or prayer,
To Jesus I repair,
Let Jesus Christ be praised!"

"But I am specially fond of the sixth verse—this:"

"The night becomes as day,
When from the heart we say,
May Jesus Christ be praised!
The powers of darkness fear,
When this sweet chant they hear,
May Jesus Christ be praised!"

"I'll learn it," said Nancy, and perhaps the others thought the same, for Tom said gently, as he smoothed his sister's hand, "I should think it was almost worth while being ill!"