ght to get up and pray to God for a new
heart?"

"Y-yess."

"Get out and pray, then!" And Punch would get out of bed with raging
hate in his heart against all the world, seen and unseen. He was
always tumbling into trouble. Harry had a knack of cross-examining him
as to his day's doings, which seldom failed to lead him, sleepy and
savage, into half a dozen contradictions--all duly reported to Aunty
Rosa next morning.

"But it was n't a lie," Punch would begin, charging into a laboured
explanation that landed him more hopelessly in the mire. "I said that
I did n't say my prayers twice over in the day, and that was on
Tuesday. Once I did, I know I did, but Harry said I did n't," and so
forth, till the tension brought tears, and he was dismissed from the
table in disgrace.

"You use n't to be as bad as this?" said Judy, awe-stricken at the
catalogue of Black Sheep's crimes. "Why are you so bad now?"

"I don't know," Black Sheep would reply. "I'm not, if I only was n't
bothered upside down. I knew what I did, and I want to say so; but
Harry always makes it out different somehow, and Aunty Rosa does n't
believe a word I say. Oh, Ju! don't you say I'm bad too."

"Aunty Rosa says you are," said Judy. "She told the Vicar so when he
came yesterday."

"Why does she tell all the people outside the house about me? It is
n't fair," said Black Sheep. "When I was in Bombay, and was bad--doing
bad, not made-up bad like this--Mamma told Papa, and Papa told me he
knew, and that was all. Outside people did n't know too--even Meeta
did n't know."

"I don't remember," said Judy wistfully. "I was all little then. Mamma
was just as fond of you as she was of me, was n't she?"

"'Course she was. So was Papa. So was everybody."

"Aunty Rosa likes me more than she does you. She says that you are a
Trial and a Black Sheep, and I'm not to speak to you more than I can
help."

"Always? Not outside of the times when you must n't speak to me at
all?"

Judy nodded her head mournfully. Black Sheep turned away in despair,
but Judy's arms were round his neck.

"Never mind, Punch," she whispered. "I will speak to you just the same
as ever and ever. You're my own, own brother though you are--though
Aunty Rosa says you're Bad, and Harry says you're a little coward. He
says that if I pulled your hair hard, you'd cry."

"Pull, then," said Punch.

Judy pulled gingerly.

"Pull harder--as hard as you can! There! I don't mind how much you
pu