old, and really the effect was
beautiful. What was their surprise when the whole song was finished to
have her say, "Now everybody whistle the chorus softly," and then pucker
up her own soft lips to join in. That completely finished the whistling
stunt. Jed realized that it would never work again, not while she was
here, for she had turned the joke into beauty and made them all enjoy
it. It hadn't annoyed her in the least.

Somehow by that time they were all ready for anything she had to
suggest, and they watched again breathlessly as she wrote another song
on the blackboard, taking the other side of the room for it, and this
time a hymn--"I Need Thee Every Hour."

When they began to sing it, however, Margaret found the tune went
slowly, uncertainly.

"Oh, how we need a piano!" she exclaimed. "I wonder if we can't get up
an entertainment and raise money to buy one. How many will help?"

Every hand in the place went up, Jed's and Timothy's last and only a
little way, but she noted with triumph that they went up.

"All right; we'll do it! Now let's sing that verse correctly." And she
began to sing again, while they all joined anxiously in, really trying
to do their best.

The instant the last verse died away, Margaret's voice took their
attention.

"Two years ago in Boston two young men, who belonged to a little group
of Christian workers who were going around from place to place holding
meetings, sat talking together in their room in the hotel one evening."

There was instant quiet, a kind of a breathless quiet. This was not like
the beginning of any lesson any other teacher had ever given them. Every
eye was fixed on her.

"They had been talking over the work of the day, and finally one of them
suggested that they choose a Bible verse for the whole year--"

There was a movement of impatience from one back seat, as if Jed had
scented an incipient sermon, but the teacher's voice went steadily on:

"They talked it over, and at last they settled on II Timothy ii:15. They
made up their minds to use it on every possible occasion. It was time to
go to bed, so the man whose room adjoined got up and, instead of saying
good night, he said, 'Well, II Timothy ii:15,' and went to his room.
Pretty soon, when he put out his light, he knocked on the wall and
shouted 'II Timothy ii:15,' and the other man responded, heartily, 'All
right, II Timothy ii:15.' The next morning when they wrote their letters
each of them wrote 'II