; "she is very kind."

"Very," assented Phoebe.

"I think I should not mind talking to her," said Gatty. "We will walk
down there to-morrow, if we can get leave."

"And now, had we not better go to sleep?" suggested Phoebe.

"Well, we can try," sighed Gatty. "But, Phoebe, 'tis no good telling me
to pray, because I have done it. I said over every collect in the
Prayer-book--ten a day; and the very morning after I had finished them,
that horrid man came, and Mother made--I had to go down and sit half an
hour listening to him. Praying does no good."

"I am not sure that you have tried it," said Phoebe.

"Didn't I tell you, this minute, I said every--"

"I ask your pardon for interrupting you, but saying is not praying. Did
you really pray them?"

"Phoebe, I do not understand you! How could I pray them and not say
them?"

"Well, I did not quite mean that," said Phoebe; "but please, Mrs Gatty,
did you feel them? Did you really ask God all the collects say, or did
you only repeat the words over? You see, if I felt cold in bed, I might
ask Mrs Betty to give me leave to have another blanket; but if I only
kept saying that I was cold, to myself, over and over, and did not tell
Mrs Betty, I should be long enough before I got the blanket. Did you
say the collects to yourself, Mrs Gatty, or did you say them to the
Lord?"

There was a pause before Gatty said, in rather an awed voice, "Phoebe,
when you pray, is God there?"

"Yes," said Phoebe, readily.

"He is not, with me," replied Gatty. "He feels a long, long way off;
and I feel as if my collects might drop and be lost before they can get
up to Him. Don't you?"

"Never," answered Phoebe. "But I don't send my prayers up by
themselves; I give them to Jesus Christ to carry. He never drops one,
Mrs Gatty."

"'Tis all something I don't understand one bit," said Gatty, wearily.
"Go to sleep, Phoebe; I won't keep you awake. But we'll go and see Mrs
Dolly."

The next afternoon, when Rhoda and Molly had disappeared on their
private affairs, Gatty dropped a courtesy to Madam, and requested her
permission to visit Mrs Dolly Jennings.

"By all means, my dear," answered Madam, affably. "If Rhoda has no
occasion for her, let Phoebe wait on you."

The second request which had been on Gatty's lips being thus
forestalled, the girls set forth--without consulting Rhoda, which Gatty
was disinclined to do, and which Phoebe fancied that she had done--and
reached t