ped for if she pinned them right down to hard,
dry facts, she took infinite pains to make her readings as interesting as
much research and a careful selection of books could make them.

The conversation was in full swing, and Miss Howard, in high feather over
the very evident impression the book had made, was congratulating herself
upon her choice of that particular volume, when one girl asked:

"Miss Howard, what particular act of Elizabeth's reign do you think had
the greatest influence upon later reigns?"

"That is rather a difficult question to answer, Natala. It was such a
brilliant reign and so fraught with portentous results in the future that
it would be very difficult to say that this or that one act was greatest
of all; although, unquestionably, the translation of the Bible was one of
the greatest blessings to posterity. Who can tell me something of great
interest which happened then?"

"I can!" cried Pauline Holden.

"I'm more than delighted to hear it," answered Miss Howard, for Pauline
was at once her joy and her despair. Affectionate and good-natured to the
last degree, she was never disturbed by anything, but I put it very mildly
when I say that Pauline did not possess a brilliant mind.

"Yes," continued Pauline. "There are not many things in history that I
care two straws about, but I remembered that because the names made me
think of a rhyme my old nurse used to say when she put me to bed."

"Miss Howard's hopes received a slight shock, but she asked:

"Will you tell us what it is?"

"It was letting Matthew, Mark, Luke and John out," triumphantly.

"Letting whom out?" asked Miss Howard, wondering what upon earth was to
follow.

"Yes, don't you remember they let them out during Elizabeth's reign?"

"Let them out of _where_?"

"Why, out of the Tower, to be sure, and it made such a difference in a
history some man was writing just then, because they had had a lot to do
with it somehow--I don't remember just what it was. Maybe one of the other
girls can."

By this time all the other girls were nearly dying of suppressed laughter,
and when poor Pauline turned to them so seriously it proved the last
straw, and such a shout as greeted her fairly made the wall ring. It was
too much for Miss Howard, and, with one last look of despair, she gave way
and laughed till she cried.

When the laugh had subsided and they had recovered their breath, Miss
Howard endeavored to explain to the brilliant expou