er so many flickers, all gorgeously dressed
in red and yellow and every color their gaudy taste could suggest, each
with his little box of money, Elizabeth explained, which he rattled
noisily, just to attract attention when he couldn't sing. But the
favorite was a gray cat-bird that sang from the bass-wood tree at the
back of the vegetable garden. They liked him best, because he was so
naughty and badly behaved, always sneaking round the backyard, and
never coming out where there was an audience, as The Rowdy did. And
then he could beat everybody, and at his own song, too! He was at them
all now, one after the other--robin, song sparrow, oriole, flicker,
everything--with a medley of trills and variations worked in just to
show that he had a whole lot of music of his own if he only cared to
use it.

John's silent laughter was quite safe, but Elizabeth's was of the
explosive variety. A chuckle escaped which caused Aunt Margaret to
look up from her Sunday-school paper, and the two culprits immediately
dived back to their tasks. Elizabeth felt how wicked she was to have
allowed her thoughts to wander thus, and for a time gave such good
attention to her question that she arrived at original sin with only
two slips.

But Mrs. Jarvis came back again, arrayed in all the grandeur in which
Elizabeth's imagination always clothed her. She planned how she would
act when that great lady came. She would walk very slowly and solemnly
into the parlor, just the way Aunt Margaret did, and bow very gravely.
Then she would say those French words Jean always used since she had
been attending the High School in Cheemaun, "Commay voo, porty voo."
That was French for "Good afternoon, Mrs. Jarvis"; and of course Mrs.
Jarvis would know French, and be very much impressed. She strove to
weave a pious thread of catechism into the wicked fabric of her
thoughts--"the sinfulness of that estate whereunto man fell"--perhaps
Mrs. Jarvis would ask her to go for a walk with her down the lane, or
even a drive in her carriage--"consists in the guilt of Adam's first
sin"--of course she would talk only of books, and not let her see the
playhouse she and Mary had made in the lane. That was very childish.
She would tell how she had read "The Vicar of Wakefield" and "Old
Mortality"--of course father had read them to her, but it was all the
same thing--and "Hiawatha" and "The Lamplighter"--"the want of original
corruption and the righteousness of his wh