grace me. I will hear you after breakfast."

But Aunt Mandy the cook was sick with the toothache, which she called a
"plum mizzery" in her face, and mother was so busy, that 'Vada, who had
returned and was more solemn than ever, dressed them and took them to
Sunday-school.

The infant class sat on seats that began close to the floor, and
gradually rose to the top of the room. Ethelwyn and Nan sat high up,
while Beth was a little way below. Bobby sat near her, and had grinned
all over his round face when she came in.

"I've brought my white mouse in my pocket; I'm going to stay for church,
and I get lonesome," he whispered.

"Uh huh," said Beth nodding, "I've brought my paper dolls." But sister
punched her in the back with her parasol to be quiet, and just then the
teacher asked her verse.

Beth thought hard. "Mother said I mustn't tell you about the priest
crewing about his cut off ear," she said thoughtfully, "but I know
another verse about St. Peter, it's easier to merember than the other
one, 'cause it's poetry."

"Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater, had a wife and couldn't keep her--"

"Next!" said the teacher with a face red, and then she coughed.

The next was Bobby, who cheerfully took up the refrain, where Beth left
off.

"--Put her in a pumpkin shell, and there he kept her very well,"

he concluded promptly.

The older pupils, with two scandalized exceptions,--Ethelwyn and
Nan--laughed, and the younger ones turned around and looked interested.
The teacher coughed again and changed the subject.

But the adventures of Bobby and Beth were by no means over, for when
they came out into the large room where the hundreds of scholars sat,
the infant class was marshaled up into the choir seats to sing "Precious
Julias" as Beth still called it. The upright of the front seat was
standing unfastened from the floor, waiting for repairs, but no one knew
it, Beth and Bobby least of all. They, and six other infants pressed
close up against it, and sang with all their might.

Unfortunately they pressed too hard on the loose back. All at once it
went over, and eight unfortunate infants sprawled flat on their faces,
hats rolling off, and books tumbling down.

Everybody stopped singing to laugh, but it changed to little shrieks of
dismay, as a poor frightened white mouse, thrown out of Bobby's pocket
by the shock, went running down the aisle.

Bobby ran after it in hot pursuit.

Beth followed loyally, for she