.

"I don't see in what way. He wrote a lot of things that weren't true,
just like Valeria, and he wrote swear words too. Valeria never does
that. Her characters all talk in a very refined fashion."

"Well, I always skip the swear words," said Peter. "And Mr. Marwood said
once that the Bible and Shakespeare would furnish any library well. So
you see he put them together, but I'm sure that he would never say that
the Bible and Valeria would make a library."

"Well, all I know is, I shall never read Shakespeare on Sunday," said
Felicity loftily.

"I wonder what kind of a preacher young Mr. Davidson is," speculated
Cecily.

"Well, we'll know when we hear him tonight," said the Story Girl. "He
ought to be good, for his uncle before him was a fine preacher, though a
very absent-minded man. But Uncle Roger says the supply in Mr. Marwood's
vacation never amounts to much. I know an awfully funny story about old
Mr. Davidson. He used to be the minister in Baywater, you know, and he
had a large family and his children were very mischievous. One day his
wife was ironing and she ironed a great big nightcap with a frill round
it. One of the children took it when she wasn't looking and hid it
in his father's best beaver hat--the one he wore on Sundays. When Mr.
Davidson went to church next Sunday he put the hat on without ever
looking into the crown. He walked to church in a brown study and at the
door he took off his hat. The nightcap just slipped down on his head, as
if it had been put on, and the frill stood out around his face and the
string hung down his back. But he never noticed it, because his thoughts
were far away, and he walked up the church aisle and into the pulpit,
like that. One of his elders had to tiptoe up and tell him what he
had on his head. He plucked it off in a dazed fashion, held it up, and
looked at it. 'Bless me, it is Sally's nightcap!' he exclaimed mildly.
'I do not know how I could have got it on.' Then he just stuffed it into
his pocket calmly and went on with the service, and the long strings of
the nightcap hung down out of his pocket all the time."

"It seems to me," said Peter, amid the laughter with which we greeted
the tale, "that a funny story is funnier when it is about a minister
than it is about any other man. I wonder why."

"Sometimes I don't think it is right to tell funny stories about
ministers," said Felicity. "It certainly isn't respectful."

"A good story is a good story--no ma