Alfred. "I guess I
ain't such a dunce as to swallow all that stuff."

"Well," said Sadie, meekly, "I'm sure I'm doing the best I can;
and you are all finding fault. I've explained to the best of _my_
abilities Julia, I'll tell you the truth;" and for a moment her
laughing face grew sober. "I don't know the least thing about
it--don't pretend to. Why don't you ask Ester? She can tell you more
about the Bible in a minute, I presume, than I could in a year."

Ester laid her book on the window. "Julia, bring your Bible here," she
said, gravely. "Now what is the matter? I never heard you make such a
commotion over your lesson."

"Mother always explains it," said Alfred, "and she hasn't got back
from Mrs. Vincent's; and I don't believe anyone else in this house
_can_ do it."

"Alfred," said Ester, "don't be impertinent. Julia, what is that you
want to know?"

"About the man being struck on one cheek, how he must let them strike
the other too. What does it mean?"

"It means just _that_, when girls are cross and ugly to you, you must
be good and kind to them; and, when a boy knocks down another, he must
forgive him, instead of getting angry and knocking back."

"Ho!" said Alfred, contemptuously, "_I_ never saw the boy yet who
would do it."

"That only proves that boys are naughty, quarrelsome fellows, who
don't obey what the Bible teaches."

"But, Ester," interrupted Julia, anxiously, "was that true what Sadie
said about me giving my shoes and stockings and my hood to folks who
stole something from me?"

"Of course not. Sadie shouldn't talk such nonsense to you. That is
about men going to law. Mother will explain it when she goes over the
lesson with you."

Julia was only half satisfied. "What does that verse mean about doing
good to them that--"

"Here, I'll read it," said Alfred--"'But I say unto you, Love your
enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and
pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.'"

"Why, that is plain enough. It means just what it says. When people
are ugly to you, and act as though they hated you, you must be very
good and kind to them, and pray for them, and love them."

"Ester, does God really mean for us to love people who are ugly to us,
and to be good to them?"

"Of course."

"Well, then, why don't we, if God says so? Ester, why don't you?"

"That's the point!" exclaimed Sadie, in her most roguish tone. "I'm
glad you've made the applic