d herself in the
oratory until her ill-humor had passed. This was certainly a great
improvement upon her former habit, under such circumstances, of
provoking a quarrel with Larry, teasing Delia, and taxing her mother's
patience to the utmost. She liked to go there, too, in the afternoon
when she came in from play, when twilight crept on and deepened, and
the flame of the little altar lamp that her father had given her shone
like a tiny star amid the dusk of the quiet room. Larry liked it
better when, just after supper, the candles of the candelabra were all
lighted, and the family gathered around the shrine and said the Rosary
together.

To Abby belonged the welcome charge of keeping the oratory in order;
while Larry always managed to have a few flowers for his vase, even if
they were only dandelions or buttercups. He and his sister differed
about the placing of this offering.

"What a queer boy you are!" said Abby to him one day. "Your vase has a
pretty wild rose painted on it, yet you always set it with the plain
side out. Nobody'd know it was anything but a plain white vase. You
ought to put it round this way," she added, turning it so that the rose
would show.

"No, I won't!" protested Larry, twisting it back again. "The prettiest
side ought to be toward the Blessed Virgin."

"Oh--well--to be sure, in one way!" began Abby. "But, then, the shrine
is all for her, and this is only a statue. What difference does it
make which side of the vase is toward a statue? And it looks so funny
to see the wrong side turned to the front. Some day we'll be bringing
Annie Conwell and Jack Tyrrell, and some of mother's friends, up here;
and just think how they'll laugh when they see it."

Larry flushed, but he answered firmly: "I don't care!--the prettiest
side ought to be toward the Blessed Virgin."

"But it is only a statue!" persisted Abby, testily.

"Of course I know it is only a statue," replied her brother, raising
his voice a trifle; for she was really too provoking. "I know it just
as well as you do. But I think Our Lady in heaven understands that I
put the vase that way because I want to give her the best I have. And
I don't care whether any one laughs at it or not. That vase isn't here
so Annie Conwell or Jack Tyrrell or anybody else will think it looks
pretty, but only for the Blessed Virgin,--so there!"

Larry, having expressed himself with such warmth, subsided. Abby did
not venture to turn the