into Sunday school. There are several
very good-looking fellows that go there, and there's a class of real
big girls taught by a Young-Men's-Christian-Association chap. He'd come
to see you, you know, if you were in his class."

Christa was perfectly consoled, perfectly satisfied; she even showed her
sister some of the animation which had hitherto come to her only when
she was flirting with men.

"Ann," she said earnestly, "you are very splendid. I got up thinking
there weren't no good in living at all."

Ann eyed her sharply. Was one set of actions the same to Christa as
another? and was she content to forget all their own shame and all her
father's wretched plight if she could only have a few pleasures for
herself? It was exactly the passive state that she had desired to evoke
in Christa; but there are many spectres that come to our call and then
appal us with their presence!

Ann went on with her work. She was not in the habit of indulging
herself in moods or reveries; still, within her grew a silent
disapproval of Christa. She felt herself superior to her. After a while
another thought came upon her with unexpected force. Christa's motive
for taking to the religious life was only self-interest; her own motive
was the same; and was not that the motive which she really supposed
hitherto to actuate all religious people? Had she not, for instance,
been fully convinced that self-interest was the sum and substance of
Bart Toyner's religion? Now between Bart Toyner and Christa and herself
she felt that a great gulf was fixed.

Well, she did not know; she did not understand; she was not at all sure
that she wanted to understand anything more about Bart Toyner and all
the complex considerations about life which the thought of him seemed to
arouse in her. She felt that the best way of ridding herself of
uncomfortable thoughts about him was to be busy in performing all that
he could reasonably require at her hands. It is just in the same way
that many people rid themselves of thoughts about God.

All that long day, while the sunlight fell pink through the haze, Ann
worked at renovating her own life and Christa's. She took Christa and
went to some girls of their acquaintance, and presented them with all
the feathers, furbelows, and artificials which she and Christa
possessed. She cooked some of the viands which she had advertised for
sale, and prepared all her small stock of kitchen utensils for the new
avocation. It was