“Oh! all right; I don’t care a bit about it, Muddy,” she answered nonchalantly.  “Only there is something splendid about rising from a band of blue-ribboned girls and boys and addressing the multitude for a great cause.”  “What do you know about this great cause, Nancy dear, at your age?”

“Oh, not much! but you don’t have to know much if you say it loud and clear to the back settees.  I’ve watched how it goes!  It was thrilling when we gave ‘Esther the Beautiful Queen’ in the Town Hall; when we waved our hands and sang ‘Haman!  Haman!  Long live Haman!’ I almost fainted with joy.”

“It was very good; I liked it too; but perhaps if you ‘faint with joy’ whenever your feet touch a platform, it will be more prudent for you to keep away!” and Mother Carey laughed.

“Very well, madam, your will is my law!  When you see the youth of Beulah treading the broad road that leadeth to destruction, and looking on the wine when it is red in the cup, remember that you withheld my hand and voice!”

Gilbert and Cyril were much together, particularly after Cyril’s standing had been increased in Beulah by the news that Mr. Thurston thought him a remarkable mathematician and perhaps the leading student in his class.  Cyril himself, too pale for a country boy of fourteen, narrow-shouldered, silent, and timid, took this unexpected fame with absolute terror, but Olive’s pride delighted in it and she positively bloomed, in the knowledge that her brother was appreciated.  She herself secretly thought books were rather a mistake when paints and brushes were at hand, and it was no wonder that she did not take high rank, seeing that she painted an hour before school, and all day Saturday, alternating her work on the guest chamber of the Yellow House with her portrait of Nancy for Mother Carey’s Christmas present.

Kathleen and Julia had fallen into step and were good companions.  Kathleen had never forgotten her own breach of good manners and family loyalty; Julia always remembered the passion of remorse that Kathleen felt, a remorse that had colored her conduct to Julia ever since.  Julia was a good plodder, and Mr. Thurston complimented her on the excellence of her Latin recitations, when he had his wits about him and could remember that she existed.  He never had any difficulty in remembering Nancy.  She was not, it must be confessed, especially admirable as a verbatim et literatim “reciter.”  Sometimes she forgot entirely what the book had said on a certain topic, but she usually had some original observation of her own to offer by way of compromise.  At first Mr. Thurston thought that she was trying to conceal her lack of real knowledge, and dazzle her instructor at the same time, so that he should never discover her ignorance.  Later on he found where her weakness and her strength lay.  She adapted, invented, modified things naturally,—­embroidered all over her task, so to speak, and delivered it in somewhat different shape from the other girls. (When