s to work her way
through college? He may be all right, sister; but I'd bank on that
girl's religion over against his any day in the week, Sundays
included."

Then Julia Cloud came up the steps, and they went in to a rather
dreary evening service with a sparse congregation and a bored-looking
choir, who passed notes and giggled during the sermon. Allison and
Leslie sat and wondered what kind of a shock it would be to them all
if the Great Companion should suddenly become visible in the room. If
all that about His being always present was true, it certainly was a
startling thing.

CHAPTER XIV

The next morning dawned with a dull, dreary drizzle coming noisily
down on the red and yellow leaves of the maple by the window; but the
three rose joyously and their ardor was not damped.

"Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work," quoted Allison at the
breakfast-table. "Cloudy, we've got to hustle. Do you mind if it does
rain? We've got our car."

But Julia Cloud smiled unconcernedly.

"I should worry," she said with a gay imitation of Leslie's inimitable
toss of the head, and the two young people laughed so hilariously that
the other staid couples already in the dining-room turned in amaze to
see who was taking life so happily on a day like this.

They piled into the car, and hied themselves to town at once,
chattering joyfully over their list as to which things they would buy
first.

"Let's begin with the kitchen," said Leslie. "I'm crazy to learn how
to make cookies. Cloudy, you'll teach me how so I can make some all
myself, won't you?"

"And waffles!" said Allison from the front seat.

"Um-mmm-mmmm! I remember Cloudy's waffles. And buckwheat cakes."

"We're going to have everything for the kitchen to make things easy,
so that when we can't get a maid Cloudy won't be always overdoing,"
said Leslie. "Guardy told me especially about that. He said we were
to get every convenience to make things easy, so the cook wouldn't
leave; for he'd rather pay any amount than have Cloudy work herself to
death and have to break down and leave us."

So it was the house-furnishing department of the great store to which
they first repaired, and there they hovered for two hours among tins
and aluminum and wooden ware, discussing the relative charms of
white-enamel refrigerators and gas-ranges, vacuum cleaners and
dish-washers, the new ideas against the old. Julia Cloud was for
careful buying and getting along with fe