a bargain,
Cloudy?"

"But I'm afraid I wouldn't be wise enough to explain," faltered Julia
Cloud, distress in her voice. "I could maybe find something to read to
you about it."

"Oh, preserve us, Cloudy! We don't want any old dissertations out of a
book. If we can't have your own thoughts that make you live it the way
you do, we haven't any use for any of it. See?"

Julia Cloud forced a trembling little smile, and said she saw, and
would do her best; but her heart sank at the prospect. What a
responsibility to be put upon her ignorant shoulders. The Lord's
Sabbath in her bungling hands to make or to mar for these two young
souls! She must pray. Oh, she must pray continually that she might be
led!

And then there came swiftly to her mind one of the verses that had
become dear and familiar to her through the years as she read and
reread her Bible, "And when they bring you unto the synagogues, and
unto magistrates, and powers, take ye no thought how or what thing ye
shall answer, or what ye shall say; for the Holy Ghost shall teach you
in the same hour what ye ought to say."

This was not exactly being brought before magistrates; but it was
being challenged for a reason for the hope that was in her, and
perhaps she could claim the promise. Surely, if the Lord wanted her to
defend His Sabbath before these two, He would give her wise words in
which to speak. Anyhow, she would just have to trust Him, for she had
none of her own.

"Now see what you've done, Leslie!" said her brother sharply. "Cloudy
hasn't looked that way once before. Next thing you know she'll be
washing her hands of us and running off back to Sterling again."

"O Cloudy!" said the penitent Leslie, flinging herself into her aunt's
arms and nestling there beseechingly. "You wouldn't do that, would
you, Cloudy, dear? No matter how naughty I got? Because you would know
I wouldn't mean it ever. Even if I was real bad."

"No, dear," said Julia Cloud, kissing her fair forehead. "But this is
just one of those things that I meant when I was afraid to undertake
it. You see there may be a great many things you will want to do on
Sunday that I would not feel it right for me to do, and I may be a
hindrance to you in lots of ways. I shouldn't like to get to be a sort
of burden to you, and it isn't as if they were things that I could
give up, you know. This is a matter of conscience."

"That's all right, Cloudy," put in Allison. "You have your say in
things li