Page:Emma Speed Sampson--The shorn lamb.djvu/37

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"I'm Rebecca Taylor"
33

"Settle that between you," smiled the blue-uniformed one, as he passed on to the next section.

"I couldn't think of letting you give me your berth," said the girl. "Mrs. O'Shea says the downstairs ones cost more than the upstairs ones, which is quite just, where there is no elevator. I don't mind a bit climbing upstairs now that I know how they look." She had been much interested in watching the porter making down a berth at the other end of the car. "In fact I believe I'd rather mash you than have you mash me, if you don't mind. But there's one thing that worries me."

"And that is?"

"I don't see how I am to say my prayers. Mrs. O'Shea says it is ill bred to hump up in bed and pray and I always knelt down by my bed even when my bed was a divan or just a quilt on the floor, the way it was when Daddy was so sick and I had to sell all the furniture. I don't see how I can kneel down outside an upper berth, do you?"

"No, I do not," laughed Philip, "unless you had a nice fluffy cloud like the cherubs in the pictures. Did Mrs. O'Shea tell you what to do about this matter of kneeling?"

"I think not, but that may have been one of