er of referring to a sermon by a
real canon. But the Canon just passed his hand across his mouth, and then
gave up the attempt to look shocked.

'You are very good little girls to listen so attentively to people's
sermons,' he said, smiling openly. 'And I think, if anybody ought to
stand up, it should be by rights a certain old gentleman who preaches
them. What do you say, Miss Smythe? If I promise to stand up for the
rest of the evening, will you let these six young ladies sit down?'

CHAPTER XII

THE FURTHER PURSUIT OF GOOD WORKS

'All the same,' said Jean Murray afterwards, 'it doesn't mean that the
Canon's sermon was wrong just because all of you were so stupid in the
way you tried to make it work.'

She could not really resist such an enticing opportunity of showing her
superiority; but her less fortunate school-fellows found it difficult to
appreciate her point of view, and they resented it accordingly.

'It's only just by chance that it wasn't you as well,' Barbara hastened to
point out.

'And you know you began by being jealous because _we_ were doing all the
sacrificing,' added Angela.

The others, not being in the inner circle of Jean's friendship, did not
venture on an open remonstrance; but one of them asked her bluntly what
she considered the Canon did mean by his address.

Jean drew herself up complacently. 'Well, of course he meant much bigger
things than just picking up people's thimbles and interfering with
everybody all round,' she began rather contemptuously.

'He said _little_ things, all the same,' observed Mary Wells, doggedly.

'That,' said Jean, airily, 'was only his way of putting it--and because
he was a canon,' she added, struck by a brilliant thought. 'When you are
a canon, the things you consider little are the same as the things that
ordinary people call big.'

'Bravo, Jean,' said Charlotte Bigley, sarcastically. 'Now, let us hear
what the big things are.'

Jean was on her mettle, and she gave herself a moment's desperate
reflection.

'Well, things like helping the poor, and taking food to people who are
starving, and giving up your pocket-money to buy things for them, and not
minding how dirty they are, nor how wicked and dishonest and--and tipsy,'
she proclaimed.

The junior playroom was much impressed by this new view of the Canon's
sermon.

'Isn't Jean clever?' demanded Angela, proudly, of her immediate
neighbours. One of these happened to be Barbara, who fu