gog with
mischief. 'It would be such fun!'

'Certainly not!' decided Angela, solemnly. 'He must never know. Didn't he
say it was splendid to suffer for righteousness's sake, and isn't this
_real_ righteousness?'

She carried the remaining four with her; and by the time Finny and Miss
Smythe joined the Canon in front of them, five out of the six faces glowed
with the fervour of martyrdom. The sixth was glowing too, but hardly
from such a lofty motive.

'Well,' said Miss Finlayson, gently, 'and what is the reason of this?'

Miss Smythe coughed and hesitated. She did not understand her pupils in
the least, but she had a certain feeling of loyalty towards them, and she
did not want to get them into trouble. Added to this, she really did not
know the reason of it.

'They--they were a little tiresome, and I made them stand up,' she
explained hurriedly. 'No doubt--only high spirits, and--and so on.
I--I could not quite grasp what had been upsetting them this evening,
and I always find standing up is--is an excellent remedy for--for high
spirits, in short.'

It was the opinion of the junior playroom afterwards that 'Smithy' had got
out of it very well; and she went up in its estimation henceforth. But
her explanation failed to satisfy Miss Finlayson. There was something
about the virtuousness on the offenders' faces that struck her as
being overdone; and she turned to the one at the end of the row, whose
countenance was a study in suppressed emotions, and tried to get at the
truth of the matter.

'What was it, Barbara?' she asked in that tone of hers that would make
any girl tell her anything. Not that Barbara, on this occasion, needed
forcing.

'It was because of the sermon yesterday,' she said, bubbling over
with enjoyment of the situation. 'And we were all trying to sacrifice
ourselves, and it was so difficult, because nobody wanted anything
done; and then Mary Wells sacrificed herself for me, so I tried to do
the same for her, and I only spoiled the baby's head-flannel, and made
Smithy--I mean Miss Smythe--wild. That was why I stood up. The other five
stood up because they all tried to sacrifice themselves for Jean's
thimble; and Miss Smythe hadn't heard the sermon, you see, and she only
thought they were being naughty, so----'

'That will do,' said Miss Finlayson, and she turned her back hurriedly
on the row of martyrs. The needlework mistress was almost in tears at what
she considered a wilfully frivolous mann