rown to consider it quite as difficult as did her
grandmother, to exercise complete faith. She had made numberless
mighty efforts, and yet things did not come out as she supposed they
ought. She sat gravely watching the cat and kitten lap up the last
drop of milk and carefully clean the sides of the pan in a manner
quite inelegant for humans, but no doubt entirely a matter of
etiquette in cat society, and then when Tippy, having done her
duty by the pan, turned her attention to making Dippy tidy,
Marian walked slowly away.

The sun was setting behind the hills, and touching the tops of the
trees along their base; further away the mountains were very dark
against a yellow line of sky. Marian continued her way thoughtfully
toward the garden, turned off before she reached the gate and
climbed a ladder which leaned against the side of the old brick
wall. From the ladder one could reach a long limb of a scraggy apple
tree upon which hung early apples nearly ripe. Marian went up the
ladder very carefully, taking care not to catch her frock upon a
nail or a projecting twig as she crept along the stout limb to
settle herself in a crotch of the tree. From this spot she could see
the distant sea, pinky purple, and shimmering silver.

Marian did not gaze at this, however, but turned her face toward the
mountains. She clasped her hands tightly and repeated firmly: "Be ye
removed into the midst of the sea. Be ye removed into the midst of
the sea." Then she waited, but the mountain did not budge an inch,
though the child kept her eyes fixed upon it. Twice, three times,
she repeated the words, but the mountain remained immovable. "I knew
it; I just knew it," exclaimed the child when she had made her final
effort, "and now I want to know how large a mustard seed is.
To-morrow I'll go ask Mrs. Hunt."

It was to Mrs. Hunt that she took all such questions, for she
hesitated to talk of very personal things to her grandparents. They
would ask her such sharp questions, and sometimes would smile in a
superior way when they did not say: "Oh, that is not a subject to
discuss with children; run along and play with Tippy." She did not
always want to be playing with Tippy when such mighty problems were
uppermost. She had many times tested her faith with the mountain,
but had always come away humiliated by the thought that her faith
must be too weak.

Though she brought her test to bear upon the mountain there was
another thing she did not da