now what to do well enough, but I
am so worried about the class."

"O, go along to sleep. I'll take your old class."

Hannah was asleep herself before Catherine had finished sighing with
grateful relief and returned to her own room.

An hour later, Hannah woke with a start to the consciousness that
something unpleasant had happened. Almost immediately that vagueness
gave way to irritating clearness. She got up and peeped into Catherine's
room. She was sleeping, but the swollen cheek left no room for hope that
the whole episode was a nightmare. Hannah dressed quietly, frowning the
while at her unconsidered offer of the early morning.

"I do think this town would be twice as nice if there weren't any
children in it. They spoil everything. I never taught anybody anything
in all my life. And I never went to Sunday-school either, except in
Germany. She will just have to get some one else," she fussed. "A
promise like that doesn't count. I was so sleepy I didn't know what I
was saying."

With unwelcome plainness she recalled the facts that Dorcas and Polly
had classes of their own, Bertha and Agnes were out of town, and Dot and
Win and Bess belonged to another denomination.

"Why couldn't she have waited till Alice came? She's always ready for
things like that. O, dear. I suppose I'll have to try. Catherine would
keep a promise herself, if she made it in delirium tremens!"

She stole down stairs before any one was stirring, save Inga in the
kitchen, found a Bible and took it over to the window-seat, where she
opened it gingerly.

"I wonder where they begin," she thought. "Might as well look Genesis
over first, to refresh my memory." She spread the thin pages open, and
began to read. Outside the open window the birds were noisily
celebrating the sunny morning. Inga ground the coffee. A bell rang for
early service somewhere. Hannah's eyes wandered from the page.

"'And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.' It sounds
just like poetry," she thought. "But what could I tell youngsters about
it? They would be sure to want to know just how the waters were kept off
the firmaments. I hope--no, I know, Elsmere _is_ in that class!" In
silent horror, Hannah sat staring out of the window. Memories of
Catherine's Sunday dinner talk swarmed back into her mind. She had
thought the stories amusing: how Elsmere had chewed gum and put it into
the collection envelope; how Perdita Osgood had described in vivid
detail h