Salome dissolved into her ready tears, and cried most of the night.
But her resolution did not fail. Go to church she would,
for that dear baby's sake.
Judith would not speak to her at breakfast, and this almost broke
Salome's heart; but she dared not yield. After breakfast, she limped
painfully into her room, and still more painfully dressed herself.
When she was ready, she took a little old worn Bible out of her box.
It had been her mother's, and Salome read a chapter in it every night,
although she never dared to let Judith see her doing it.
When she limped out into the kitchen, Judith looked up with a hard face.
A flame of sullen anger glowed in her dark eyes, and she went
into the sitting-room and shut the door, as if by that act she
were shutting her sister for evermore out of her heart and life.
Salome, strung up to the last pitch of nervous tension,
felt intuitively the significance of that closed door.
For a moment she wavered--oh, she could not go against Judith! She was
all but turning back to her room when Lionel Hezekiah came running in,
and paused to look at her admiringly.
"You look just bully, Aunt Salome," he said. "Where are you going?"
"Don't use that word, Lionel Hezekiah," pleaded Salome.
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