we used to
help her. Now she hardly ever looks after it at all."

"She is older, I suppose."

"She's a little older, and a deal idler. How idle people do get!
Look at him. Since he has had a curate he hardly ever stirs round
the parish. And he is getting so fat that-- H--sh! Here she is
herself,--come to give her judgment upon us." Then a stout lady, the
wife of the vicar, walked slowly up the aisle. "Well, girls," she
said, "you have worked hard, and I am sure Mr. Boyce will be very much
obliged to you."

"Mr. Boyce, indeed!" said Lily Dale. "We shall expect the whole parish
to rise from their seats and thank us. Why didn't Jane and Bessy come
and help us?"

"They were so tired when they came in from the coal club. Besides,
they don't care for this kind of thing,--not as you do."

"Jane is utilitarian to the backbone, I know," said Lily, "and Bessy
doesn't like getting up ladders."

"As for ladders," said Mrs. Boyce, defending her daughter, "I am not
quite sure that Bessy isn't right. You don't mean to say that you did
all those capitals yourself?"

"Every twig, with Hopkins to hold the ladder and cut the sticks; and
as Hopkins is just a hundred and one years old, we could have done it
pretty nearly as well alone."

"I do not think that," said Grace.

"He has been grumbling all the time," said Lily, "and swears he never
will have the laurels so robbed again. Five or six years ago he used
to declare that death would certainly save him from the pain of such
another desecration before the next Christmas; but he has given up
that foolish notion now, and talks as though he meant to protect the
Allington shrubs at any rate to the end of this century."

"I am sure we gave our share from the parsonage," said Mrs. Boyce, who
never understood a joke.

"All the best came from the parsonage, as of course they ought," said
Lily. "But Hopkins had to make up the deficiency. And as my uncle
told him to take the haycart for them instead of the hand-barrow, he
is broken-hearted."

"I am sure he was very good-natured," said Grace.

"Nevertheless he is broken-hearted; and I am very good-natured too,
and I am broken-backed. Who is going to preach to-morrow morning, Mrs
Boyce?"

"Mr. Swanton will preach in the morning."

"Tell him not to be too long, because of the children's pudding. Tell
Mr. Boyce if he is long, we won't any of us come next Sunday."

"My dear, how can you say such wicked things! I shall not tell him