rest you for the next ten
minutes at least; though I don't know but you would better stay; it
would be a good introduction to the talk that I want to have with you
early in the week. I am coming to-morrow after school, if I may."

Dr. Dennis gave the assent promptly, named the hour that he would be at
leisure, and went away wondering what they were accomplishing in the
primary class.

This was the introduction to Marion's talk in the study with Dr. Dennis.
She wasted no time in preliminaries, but had hardly seated herself
before the subject on her mind was brought forward.

"It is all about that class, Dr. Dennis. I am going to prove a failure."

"Don't," he said, smiling at her words, but looking his disturbance; "we
have had failures enough in that class to shipwreck it; it is quite time
we had a change for the better. What is the trouble?"

"The trouble is, we do nothing. Two-thirds of our time is occupied in
getting ready to do; and even then we can't half accomplish it. Then we
don't stay ready, and have to begin the work all over again. Yesterday,
for instance, there were three absences among the teachers; that means
confusion, for each of those teachers have seven children who are thus
thrown loose on the world. Think how much time we must consume in
getting them seated somewhere, and under some one's care; and then
imagine, if you can, the amount of time that they consume in saying,
'Our teacher doesn't do so, she does _so_.'"

"What is the reason that the teachers in that room are so very
irregular?"

"Why, they are not irregular; that is as Sunday-school teachers rate
regularity. To be sure, it would never do to be teaching a graded
school, for instance, and be as careless as some of them are about
regularity. But that is a different matter, of course; this is only a
Sunday-school! But for all that, I think they do as well as the average.
You see, Dr. Dennis, there are twenty of them, and if each one of them
is present every Sunday in the year save three, that makes a good deal
of regularity on their part, and yet averages absences every Sabbath to
be looked after. Don't you see?"

"I see," he said, smiling; "that is a mathematical way of putting it.
There is reason in it, too. How in the world do you manage when there
are vacancies?"

"Which is always," Marion said, quickly. "There has not been a Sabbath
since I have had charge when all the teachers were present; and I have
taken pains to inquire o