r words.

"I know Miss Row is always trying to make up a choir, and she has such
difficulty. You would be doing her a real kindness if you help her; and I
know you would like to do that," with a smile at Esther.

Esther sighed. "Yes," she said hesitatingly. "But--but can't one ever do
things just in the way one likes, Cousin Charlotte? There are lots of
kind things I should love to do."

"We may choose, generally, whether we will do a thing or not, or whether
we will do it in our way, or the way that is mapped out for us.
But usually if we choose our own, it is ourselves we please, and not the
person we are doing it for. But this we can always do, dearie--if we have
to do a thing we do not like, we can teach ourselves to like to do it."

"It sounds like a riddle," said Penelope.

"It very often is," said Miss Charlotte. "But am sure you will all grow
to love your singing and your choir when the first shyness is over, and
then you will be glad you gave in, and did not choose your own way.
And of one thing you may be quite sure: if, as you think, you have no
voices, Miss Row will soon tell you so, and you will not be bothered any
more about having to sing."

But, after all, somehow it did not seem to them that that was what they
wanted.

CHAPTER XI.

To the girls' relief they were not expected to appear at the very next
choir practice. Miss Charlotte had a talk with her friend, which tempered
her enthusiasm with common sense, with the result that the children had
their voices tried and two or three lessons given them before they were
expected to appear in public, with the result that poor Poppy, the only
one who really longed to be in the choir, was the only one denied that
honour. All their voices were pronounced quite good. But Poppy was too
young; it would strain her voice, she was told, and to her chagrin she had
to sit in an ordinary pew with Miss Ashe while the others sat in what
Poppy called the 'dear little' choir stalls in the chancel.

But, to show her defiance of this objectionable, and, as she thought,
unnecessary care for her voice, she sang always at the top of it.
It happened often that she did not know the right words, but she always
managed to pick up the tune quickly, and with just one sentence to repeat
over and over again, she got along to her own satisfaction, at any rate
convinced in her own mind that it would not be very long before they would
be glad to _ask_ her to come in