oodshed, Sister. If not, I must leave
you."

"Oh, I'll go to the woodshed with you."

"And will you help me with my work?"

"I help you with your work!"

There was a long, narrow table in the woodshed--some planks laid upon
two tressels; and the walls were piled with all kinds of sawn wood,
deal planks, and rough timber, and a great deal of broken furniture
and heaps of shavings. The woodshed was so full of rubbish of all
kinds that there was only just room enough to walk up and down the
table. Sister Mary John was making at that time a frame for
cucumbers, and Evelyn watched her planing the deal boards, especially
interested when she pushed the plane down the edge of the board, and
a long, narrow shaving curled out of the plane, but asking no
questions.

"Now, wouldn't you like to do some work on the other side of the
table, Sister?"

Evelyn did not answer, and it was not that day nor the next, but at
the end of the week, that she was persuaded to take the pincers and
pull the nails out of an old board.

"And when you have done that, I will show you how to plane it."

She seemed to have very little strength--or was it will that she
lacked? The pincers often fell from her hands, and she would stand,
lost in reverie.

"Now, Sister, you have only pulled two nails out of that board in the
last ten minutes; it is really very tiresome of you, and I am waiting
for it."

"Do you really mean that you are waiting for this board? Do you want
it?"

"But of course; I shouldn't have asked you to draw the nails out of
it if I didn't," And it was by such subterfuges that she induced
Evelyn to apply herself. "Now, you won't think of anything until you
have drawn out every nail, will you? Promise me." Sister Mary John
put the pincers into her hand, and when the board was free of nails,
it seemed that Evelyn had begun to take an interest in the fate of
the board which she had prepared. She came round the table to watch
Sister Mary John planing it, and was very sorry when the nun's plane
was gapped by a nail which had been forgotten.

"This iron will have to go to the grinders."

"I am so sorry, Sister. Will you forgive me?"

"Yes, I'll forgive you; but you must try to pay attention."

When the cucumber-frame was finished Sister Mary John was busy making
some kitchen chairs, and the cutting out of the chair-backs moved
Evelyn's curiosity.

"Shall you really be able to make a chair that one can sit upon?"

"I hope