in a terrible stew about the anthem;
Mary Cleaver is laid up with a bad cold and sore throat, so that there
is no chance of her being able to sing to-morrow, and there is not
another in the choir that could make anything of the solo--at least not
anything worth listening to. Is it not provoking?--just at the last
minute. Grace, now won't you take Miss Cleaver's place just for once?
Do, please."

"Thanks! But the idea is too absurd. Fancy my singing at a 'missionary
meeting.'"

"Perhaps Isabel would," interposed Rose.

"The idea is too absurd," returned Emily, affectedly.

"Don't be impertinent, Emily," said Grace, haughtily. "It is useless to
talk of Isabel, she added, addressing Rose, "she refused before, and
Everard would not be so absurd as to ask her again; he was quite
pressing enough--far too much so for my taste."

"I'm not so sure he won't; he will not easily give up his 'pet anthem,'"
replied Emily.

"Well, Isabel will not do it, you will see," answered Grace.

"I'm not so sure of that, either; he usually gets his own way somehow or
other."

"Then how was it he did not succeed at first?" said Grace, tartly.

"Oh, because Isabel made him believe that it would not be fair to Miss
Cleaver."

"Oh, Emily, that was not why Isabel would not, and she never said it
was," exclaimed Alice; "she told Everard she had several reasons for not
singing, and, she added, it would not be fair to Miss Cleaver after
being in the choir so long."

"And pray what might these weighty reasons be?" asked Grace.

"I don't know," returned Alice.

"Nor Isabel, either, I imagine," Grace answered.

"What are you so perturbed about, Emily?" asked Isabel, who now joined
them."

"The choir are in trouble about the anthem."

"How is that?" inquired Isabel.

"Mary Cleaver is sick," returned Emily, "and Everard is awfully put out
about it."

Everard entered with a roll of music in his hand.

"Where is Miss Leicester?" he asked.

"She is here," Grace answered, languidly.

"You will not now refuse to take the soprano in the anthem to-morrow, he
said, when I tell you that it is utterly impossible for Miss Cleaver to
do so, and that the anthem must be omitted unless you will sing."

"I am sorry that the anthem should be a failure, but I really cannot,"
replied Isabel, evidently annoyed.

"Oh, yes you can--just this once," he pleaded.

But Isabel only shook her head.

"Do you mean, Miss Leicester, that you positively wi