could not get past the piano," teased Dr. Campbell,
when the shout of laughter at Faith's sally had died away. "Hope, what
have you to say for yourself?"

"Not much. I visited all the rooms upstairs and down; fed the canary;
got acquainted with Blinks, the cat, and Kyte, the hound; found Towzer
and tried to make him be friends with Kyte, but he wouldn't be coaxed.
Gussie said there were some kittens in the basement, so I went down
there to find them, but the boy from the hardware store was there
working on the furnace, and some way we fell to talking about studies,
and he was so discouraged over his algebra lesson for night-school that
I stopped to see if I could help him out a little, and the bell rang
Just as we got the third problem worked."

"My gentle Saint Lucia," he said in praise, as he turned from her to the
next sister in age. "Cherry, give an account of your wanderings."

"I wandered downstairs as far as the library--I guess that is what you
call it."

"And then what?" for she stopped as if her tale were told.

"That's all. I stayed there."

"Oh!" The President wilted, Mrs. Campbell stared, and for a moment even
the sisters were silent in surprise at the matter-of-fact tone of the
narrator; then the whole assembly burst into another merry shout, much
to the disgust of poor Cherry, who could see no cause for amusement, and
voiced her sentiments by saying petulantly, "I don't see anything the
matter with that! What difference is there between playing the piano all
the morning and reading books?"

"It wasn't what you did that amused us," said Mrs. Campbell soothingly.
"It was the way you told it. We won't laugh any more."

"Oh!" breathed the ruffled damsel in relief, "if that's all, I don't
care how much you laugh. But you'll have a better chance with Peace--she
never can tell anything straight."

"What kind of a saint is Cherry?" inquired the younger girl, ignoring
the compliment she had just received. "If Gail is Saint 'Lizabeth and
Faith is Saint Cecilia and Hope is Saint Lucy, what's Cherry?"

"Saint Bookworm, I guess, Miss Curiosity-Box. What have you been doing
this morning?"

"Oh, lots of things," she sighed heavily. "Allee and me went together.
We began with the attic, which is full of trunks of old clothes and
battered-up furniture and cobwebs, and has two rooms for the hired girls
to sleep in. Gussie's room is just _suburb_! It's dec'rated with the
queerest looking old bird of a bedstead--