"Kat," cried Beatrice, with some severity. "You must not speak so, it is
wrong, and you don't mean it Why, if any one else was to say such things
about Olive, you'd pretty near fight."

"To be sure I would," said Kat with ready inconsistency. "I truly think
Olive is a trump, and I'd cheerfully knock anybody down who said she
wasn't. I don't know what we would have done without her in the trouble,
and I do wish she wasn't so odd, and stayed away from us so."

"She makes me think of a chestnut burr," said Kittie resorting to
figurative comparisons. "There's lots of good in her, but she won't let
any one get at it. If we try, she shuts up and gets prickly. I never
thought much about it, until here lately, and then she was so splendid,
and knew how to do everything; and, I begin to think that there is ever
so much more to her than we think, even if she is queer, and don't seem
to like us much."

"Well, I wouldn't worry so about her," interposed Ernestine, as though
the subject wearied her. "She evidently don't like us excessively, or
care about being with us, so leave her alone. Bea, come let's try our
duet."

Olive had sat perfectly still, and heard all this, quite unconscious
that her feet were getting chilly in the cold oven, or that, perhaps,
she should have notified them of her presence. She had a vague feeling,
as of one trying hard to solve a problem, and pausing suddenly in her
vain efforts, to listen to some one solving it for her. But surely they
could not be right! Olive left her seat noiselessly, and went up the
back stairs to her room. It was bitterly cold there, but she wrapped her
shawl about her, and sat down by the window, where the fast falling
snow was almost hidden in a heavy wrap of early twilight. Olive did not
often pray. To be sure she said her prayers every night, as properly and
methodical as clockwork, and was very particular about always kneeling
down, as though position could atone for any lacking earnestness; for
she was just as apt to be thinking of her account-book, or Mr. Dane's
last order, as of anything, in the hurried words that slid over her
lips. Yes, she prayed in this way once in every twenty-four hours, but
there never came to her any of those sudden, passionate appeals for help
or strength, when the whole heart leaps to the lips, or pleads dumbly,
in its great need. Notwithstanding all teachings to the point, it never
really occurred to her that God had as quick and sympatheti