her sister's lap a plate of yellow plums,
perfectly bedded in moss, which had come from the vicarage garden. And
as Phillis enjoyed the dainty repast and poured out her morning's
experiences in the ears of her astonished auditors, lo, the
humiliation and the sting were forgotten, and only an intense sense of
the humor of the situation remained.

It was Dulce whose pink cheeks were burning now.

"Oh, Phillis! how could you? It is too dreadful even to think about!
That fat old thing, too! Why, she is twice as big as Mrs. Squails!"

"Beggars cannot be choosers, my dear," replied Phillis, airily; for
rest was pleasant, and the fruit was good, and it was so delicious to
feel all that was over and she was safe in her nest again; and then
the pleasure of talking it all over! "Do you know--?" she began, in a
disconnected manner, and then sat and stared at her sisters with
luminous gray eyes, until they begged to know what the new idea was.

"Oh, nothing," she replied, and colored a little. And then she blurted
out, in an oddly-ashamed way, "it was talking to you two dears that
put it in my head. But I could not help thinking that moment that if
one is ever good enough to get to heaven, one of the greatest
pleasures will be to talk about all our past miseries and
difficulties, and how the angels helped us! and, though you may laugh
at me,"--they were doing nothing of the kind, only admiring her with
all their might,--"I have a kind of fancy that even my 'Trimmings, not
Squails' episode may have a different look up there!"

"My dear," returned Nan, gently, for she loved all speeches of this
sort, being a devout little soul and truly pious, "nothing was further
from my thoughts than to laugh at you, for the more we think in this
way the grander our work will appear to us. Mrs. Trimmings may be fat
and vulgar, but when you were measuring her and answering her so
prettily--and I know how nicely you would speak, Phil--I think you
were as brave as one of those old knights--I cannot remember their
names--who set out on some lofty quest or other!"

"I suppose the child means Sir Galahad," observed Phillis, with a
groan at Nan's ignorance. "Oh, Nannie, I wish I could say,--

"'My strength is as the strength of ten,
Because my heart is pure;'"

and then she softly chanted,--for quotation never came amiss to her,
and her head was crammed with choice selections from the poets,--