The next morning after my walk I was up early, and going a little way from my tent door, I sat down to enjoy it. The servants were but just stirring; my father and Mr. Dinwiddie safe within their canvas curtains. It was very nice to be alone, for I wanted to think. The air was deliciously balmy and soft; another fair day had risen upon us in that region of tropical summer; the breath of the air was peace. Or was it the speech of the past? It is difficult to disentangle things sometimes. I had troublesome matters to think about, yet somehow I was not troubled. I did not lay hold of trouble, all the while I was in Palestine. Mr. Dinwiddie's words had revealed to me that it might be my duty to tell my father all that was in my heart. Suspicions of the fact, only, had crossed my thought before; but "as iron sharpeneth iron, so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend." I saw more clearly. And the longer I sat there on my stone looking over to the line of the Jordan and to the hills through which the armies of Israel had once come down to cross it, the clearer it grew to my mind, that the difficulty before me was one to be faced, not evaded. I saw that papa had a right to know my affairs, and that he would think it became me as a Christian not to make a mystery of them. I saw I must tell papa about myself. And yet, it did not appal me, as the idea had often appalled me. I was hardly afraid. At any rate, there before me the hosts of the Israelites had passed over dry shod; though the river was swift and strong; and the appeal of Elisha, - "Where is the Lord God of Elijah?" - came home to my ear like a blast of the priests' silver trumpets. I felt two hands on my shoulders.
"Papa, you know little about it yet. Old Jericho was up there."
"You speak as if I had gone to school in 'old Jericho,' " said my father, laughing. "I have the vaguest idea, Daisy, that such a city existed. That is all."
"Sit down, papa, while breakfast is getting ready, and let me mend your knowledge."
So we read the story there, on the stone by the spring. Mr. Dinwiddie joined us; and it was presently decided that we should spend the morning in examining the ground in our neighbourhood and the old sites of what had passed away. So after breakfast we sat out upon a walk over the territory of old Jericho.