"

But Ellen proceeded to give the question: "Doth original sin wholly
defile you, and is it sufficient to send you to hell, though you had no
other sin?"

"Yes!" roared Jim, pleased at being certainly right.

"What are you then by nature?" Ellen went on rather carelessly, for she
was growing tired of the lesson.

"I am an enemy to God, a child of Satan, and an heir of hell," answered
Bobby promptly.

"What will become of the wicked?" asked the little catechist.

Bobby yawned, and then said contemptuously, "Oh, skip that,--cast into
hell, of course."

"You ought to answer right," Ellen said reprovingly, but she was glad to
give the last question, "What will the wicked do forever in hell?"

"They will roar, curse, and blaspheme God," said little Jim cheerfully;
while Bobby, to show his joy that the lesson was done, leaned over on his
flower-pot, and tried to stand on his head, making all the time an
unearthly noise.

"I'm roarin'!" he cried gayly.

Ellen, freed from the responsibility of teaching, put the little yellow
book quickly in her pocket, and said mysteriously, "Boys, if you won't
ever tell, I'll tell you something."

"I won't," said Jim, while Bobby responded briefly, "G'on."

"Well, you know when the circus came,--you know the pictures on the
fences?"

"Yes!" said the little boys together.

"'Member the beautiful lady, ridin' on a horse, and standin' on one
foot?"

"Yes!" the others cried, breathlessly.

"Well," said Ellen slowly and solemnly, "when I get to be a big girl,
that's what I'm going to be. I'm tired of catechism, and church, and
those long blessings father asks, but most of catechism, so I'm going
to run away, and be a circus."

"Father'll catch you," said Jim; but Bobby, with envious depreciation,
added,--

"How do you know but what circuses have catechism?"

Ellen did not notice the lack of sympathy. "And I'm going to begin to
practice now," she said.

Then, while her brothers watched her, deeply interested, she took off her
shoes, and in her well-darned little red stockings climbed deliberately
upon the grindstone.

"This is my horse," she said, balancing herself, with outstretched arms,
on the stone, and making it revolve in a queer, jerky fashion by pressing
her feet on it as though it were a treadmill, "and it is bare-backed!"

The iron handle came down with a thud, and Ellen lurched to keep from
falling; the boys unwisely broke into cheers.

It made a pretty pi