ing for
the afternoon service, "do you know that Flossy taught a class in
Sunday-school this morning?"

"Taught a class!" repeated both Marion and Ruth in one voice, and with
about equal degrees of amazement.

"She did, as true as the world. That is, she must have been teaching.
The way of it was this: I went to see the little midgets exhibit
themselves, and when I came out of the tent and walked over toward the
stand, there sat Flossy on that old stump just back of the stand, and
before her were two of the roughest-looking boys that ever emerged from
the backwoods. They were ragged and dirty and wild; and as wicked little
imps as one could find, I am sure. Flossy was talking to them, and she
had a large Bible in her lap and one of those Lesson Leaves that they
flutter about here so much; and--well, altogether it was an amazing
sight! She was certainly talking to them with all her might, and they
were listening; and it is my opinion that she was trying to play
Sunday-school teacher, and give them a lesson. You know she is an
imitative little sheep, and always was."

"Nonsense!" Ruth said, and she seemed to speak more sharply than the
occasion warranted. "Just as if Flossy Shipley couldn't have anything to
say to two boys but what she found in the Bible! Little she knows what
is in it, for that matter. I suppose she wandered out that way because
she did not know what else to do with herself, and talked to the boys by
way of amusement. She has often amused herself in that way, I am sure."

"Ah, yes; but these specimens were rather too youthful and dirty for
that sort of amusement, and she had a Bible in her lap."

"What of that! Bibles are as common as leaves here. I found two lying on
the seat which I took this morning. People seem to think the art of
stealing has not found its way here."

"Flossy is changed," interrupted Marion. "The mouse is certainly
different from what _I_ ever saw her before; she seems so quiet and
self-sustained. I thought she was bored. Why, I expected her to hail a
trip to her dear Saratoga with absolute delight! She belongs to just the
class of people who would find the intellectual element here too strong
for her, and would have to flutter off in that direction in
self-defense. Ruthie, you have the temper of an angel not to fly out at
me for bringing in Saratoga every few minutes. It isn't with 'malice
aforethought,' I assure you. I forget your projected scheme whenever I
speak of it; bu