Who said he doesn't love you? What was he there for? I stick to
that."
"Now, nurse, dear, be reasonable; if Mr. Dodd loved me, would he go to
sleep in my presence?"
"Eh! Miss Lucy, the poor soul was maybe asleep before you left your
room."
"It is all the same. He slept while I stood close to him ever so long.
Slept while I-- If I loved anybody as these gentlemen pretend they
love us, should I sleep while the being I adored was close to me?"
"You are too hard upon him. 'The spirit is willing but the flesh is
weak.' Why, miss, we do read of Eutychus, how he snoozed off setting
under Paul himself--up in a windy--and down a-tumbled. But parson says
it wasn't that he didn't love religion, or why should Paul make it his
business to bring him to life again, 'stead of letting un lie for a
warning to the sleepy-headed ones. ''Twas a wearied body, not a heart
cold to God,' says our parson."
"Now, nurse, I take you at your word. If Eutychus had been Eutycha,
and in love with St. Paul, Eutycha would never have gone to sleep,
though St. Paul preached all day and all night; and if Dorcas had
preached instead of St. Paul, and Eutychus been in love with her, he
would never have gone to sleep, and you know it."
At this home-thrust Mrs. Wilson was staggered, but the next moment her
sense of discomfiture gave way to a broad expression of triumph at her
nursling's wit.
"Eh! Miss Lucy," cried she, showing a broadside of great white teeth
in a rustic chuckle, "but ye've got a tongue in your head.
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