badges and pass-words
and grips. It would be fun if we can only get some heathen to work at!"
cried Jill, ready for fresh enterprises of every sort.

"I can tell you someone to begin on right away," said her mother,
nodding at her. "As wild a little savage as I'd wish to see. Take her
in hand, and make a pretty-mannered lady of her. Begin at home, my lass,
and you'll find missionary work enough for a while."

"Now, Mammy, you mean me! Well, I will begin; and I'll be so good, folks
won't know me. Being sick makes naughty children behave in story-books,
I'll see if live ones can't;" and Jill put on such a sanctified face
that the girls laughed and asked for their missions also, thinking they
would be the same.

"You, Merry, might do a deal at home helping mother, and setting the big
brothers a good example. One little girl in a house can do pretty much
as she will, especially if she has a mind to make plain things nice and
comfortable, and not long for castles before she knows how to do her own
tasks well," was the first unexpected reply.

Merry colored, but took the reproof sweetly, resolving to do what she
could, and surprised to find how many ways seemed open to her after a
few minutes' thought.

"Where shall I begin? I'm not afraid of a dozen crocodiles after Miss
Bat;" and Molly Loo looked about her with a fierce air, having had
practice in battles with the old lady who kept her father's house.

"Well, dear, you haven't far to look for as nice a little heathen as
you'd wish;" and Mrs. Pecq glanced at Boo, who sat on the floor staring
hard at them, attracted by the dread word "crocodile." He had a cold and
no handkerchief, his little hands were red with chilblains, his clothes
shabby, he had untidy darns in the knees of his stockings, and a head of
tight curls that evidently had not been combed for some time.

"Yes, I know he is, and I try to keep him decent, but I forget, and he
hates to be fixed, and Miss Bat doesn't care, and father laughs when I
talk about it."

Poor Molly Loo looked much ashamed as she made excuses, trying at the
same time to mend matters by seizing Boo and dusting him all over with
her handkerchief, giving a pull at his hair as if ringing bells, and
then dumping him down again with the despairing exclamation: "Yes, we're
a pair of heathens, and there's no one to save us if I don't."

That was true enough; for Molly's father was a busy man, careless of
everything but his mills, Miss Bat