ry," said I. "How do you like the pulpit?"

"Very much indeed," said Polly; "but I don't think I can preach
without a cushion. Suppose we talk."

Thus the sermon was abandoned; and as Polly refused to let me try my
luck in the pulpit, she remained at a considerably higher level than I
was. At last I became impatient of this fact, and began to climb
higher.

[Illustration: Polly and Regie in the "Pulpit" and the "Pew".]

"Stop!" cried Polly; "you mustn't leave your pew."

"I'm going into the gallery," a happy thought enabled me to say.

Polly made no answer. She seemed to be meditating some step; and
presently I saw her scramble down to the ground in her own rapid
fashion.

"Regie dear, will you promise not to get into my pulpit till I come
back?" she begged.

I gave the promise; and, without answering my questions as to what she
was going to do, she sped off towards the house. In about five minutes
she returned with something held in the skirt of her frock, which
seemed greatly to incommode her in climbing. At last she reached the
pulpit, but she did not stay there. Up and on she went, much hindered
by her burden.

"Polly! Polly!" I cried. "You mustn't go higher than the pulpit. You
know it isn't fair. The pulpit is the top one, and you must stay
there. The clergyman never goes into the gallery."

"I'm not going into the gallery," she gasped; and on she went to the
topmost of the large branches. There she paused, and from her lap she
drew forth the dinner-bell.

"I'm in the belfry," she shouted in tones of triumph, "and I'm going
to ring the bell for service."

Which she accordingly did, with such a hearty goodwill that Nurse
Bundle and several others of the household came out to see what was
the matter. My father laughed loudly, but Mrs. Bundle was seriously
displeased.

"Master Reginald would never have thought of no such thing on a Sunday
afternoon but for you, Miss Polly," she said, with a partiality for
her "own boy" which offended my sense of justice.

"I climbed a tree too, Nurse," I said, emphatically.

"And it was only a Sunday kind of climbing," Polly pleaded. But Nurse
Bundle refused to see the force of Polly's idea; we were ignominiously
dismissed to the nursery, and thenceforward were obliged, as before,
to confine our tree-climbing exploits to the six working days of the
week.

And these Portugal laurels bore the names of the Pulpit and the Pew
ever afterwards.

* *