The girls looked both surprised and shocked, and Miss
Eunice continued:--

"On the contrary, I dare say many of you remember times when the
thrilling interest of an exciting story has made you utterly forget your
prayers, or at any rate has made church and Sunday-school and the homely
duties of a Christian life seem tame and flat by comparison. Is it not
so?"

Many bowed assent.

"Now for my last question: Would you be willing that your fathers and
brothers or the young men of your acquaintance should read all of these
books with you, every passage, and could you, without blushing, read
them aloud to your pastor or to me?"

No answer.

"There is another aspect of the question," continued the teacher. "Your
employers pay you a stipulated sum in return for a certain amount of
work to be done in a certain amount of time. They have a right to expect
you to give your best skill, your closest attention. Do you think it is
quite _honest_ either to use a part of that time in reading foolish,
useless, or hurtful books, or to come to your work so exhausted and
preoccupied by them as to be unfitted for performing your part of the
contract?"

"I do not desire to coerce you, or even to bind your consciences by any
promise, but I leave you to consider all I have said, and I think if you
do so honestly and prayerfully you will come to the conclusion that for
you who hope you have found your Saviour,--nay, I will say for all,
inasmuch as you all ought to be Christians,--the reading of this kind of
books and stories is among those works of the flesh and the devil which
you are called to renounce."

Katie had got the answer she had asked for, and besides she was well
furnished with arguments to bring to bear upon Tessa the first
opportunity she should have of talking with her, and that, she
determined, should be very soon.

When the girls and their escorts had gone home that evening, the two
sisters lingered to talk a little over the question that had so
interested their scholars. It was a new thing for them to have any
common interest, and Eunice hailed it as a good omen that her sister
should consult with her about anything. Etta had not yet confided to her
elder sister her new hopes, purposes, and feelings. She was an
independent girl, who had always thought and acted for herself, and
there had never been anything like sisterly familiarity between the
eldest and youngest of the Mountjoys. The distance between them was too