and better than four or
five of them could do.

After a while, when the girls grew older, and finished learning all
that they could study with Miss Chapman, and some, perhaps, did not go
to school any more, they were very glad that they had learned to listen
so attentively; for any one of those little girls who practised
listening to the sermon and remembering all they could of it, and then
strengthened their memory by writing it down afterwards, found that
they had a great deal to be glad of in this training. Even after they
grew up, they were so in the habit of listening attentively that they
never heard a sermon without being able to remember a great deal of it;
so their memories were not like sieves, through which a great deal
could run, but in which very little, or perhaps nothing, would remain.

But they did not realize then how good it was for them, for even
grown-up people very seldom realize that, and so the girls grumbled a
good deal sometimes, when they had to sit down on Sunday afternoon and
write out what they could remember.

There was one thing, however, which the girls soon discovered. It did
not make it any easier to grumble about it, and the sooner one set to
work in good earnest, the more one was likely to remember of the
sermon, and the sooner the task was accomplished; and they had the rest
of the afternoon to themselves until Bible-class hour just before
tea-time.

Then Miss Chapman heard them say the catechism, and talked to them and
heard them recite the Bible lesson which they had studied that morning.
The time between writing the sermon and the Bible class was always a
pleasant time to the scholars. They sat in one another's rooms and
talked, or if it was a pleasant day they went out and walked about the
garden. While Miss Chapman would not allow any loud laughing nor
playing on this day, yet she was glad to have it one which the girls
would enjoy as much as possible, and would look back upon with pleasure.

There was always some special dainty for tea, and then, after tea, the
girls all gathered around the piano in the parlor, and Miss Emma played
hymns for them, and they sang until it was time to go to bed. They all
enjoyed this. Even the girls who could not sing very well themselves
liked to hear the others sing, and they were sorry when the old clock
in the hall struck the bed-time hour.

Every Sunday seemed such a long step towards the holidays when they
should go home and se