ay of punishment, Lota
had to learn four verses of a hymn after dinner. It was the hymn which
begins,--

"Awake, my soul, and with the sun
Thy daily course of duty run,"

and learning it took all the time from dinner till four o'clock.

The hymn learned and repeated, Lota read for awhile in one of her Sunday
books. She was ashamed of her sleepiness in the morning, and had every
intention of being very good till bedtime; but unluckily she looked
across to where the dolls were sitting, and, as she explained to Nursey
afterward, Pocahontas Maria was whispering to Imogene, and both of them
were laughing so hard and looking so mischievous that she _had_ to see
what was the matter. Result;--at five, Jennings, coming to call Lota,
found her with all the dolls in a row before her teaching them hymns.
And, though this seems most proper, Jennings, who was a strict
Methodist, did not think so; so Lota had another lecture from
Grandmamma, and went to bed under a sense of disgrace. So much for
Sunday.

Monday opened with bright sunshine. It had rained all night; but by
eleven o'clock the dear old garden was quite dry, and how sweet it did
look! The pink roses twinkled and winked their whisker-like calyxes as
she went by; the white ones shook their serene leaves, and sent out
delicious smells. Every green thing looked greener than it had done
before the rain. The blue sky, swept clear of clouds, seemed to have
been rubbed and made brilliant. It was a day for gardens; and Lady Bird
and her family celebrated it by a picnic, to which they invited all the
Greens.

"Lady Green hasn't treated me quite properly," remarked Lota to her
oldest child, Pocahontas. "She didn't leave her card at this house I
don't know when. But we won't mind about that, because it's such a nice
day, and we want the picnic. And we can't have the picnic without the
Greens, you know, dear, because there aren't any other people to
invite."

So they had the picnic,--a delightful one. The young Greens behaved
badly. They almost always did behave badly when they came to see Lady
Bird; but it was rather a good thing, because she could warn her own
children that, if they did the same, they would be severely punished.
"Lady Green is too indulgent," she would say. "I want _my_ children to
be much gooder than hers. Mind that, Imogene." So, on this occasion,
when Clarissa Green snatched at the rose-cakes which formed the staple
of the feast, Lota