nd damned us all to death!"

He stopped short, scowling, partly from fright, I think.

"That teaches us to obey God," said Ruyven, severely, dipping his brush
into the pink paint-cake.

"What's the good of obeying God if we're all to go to hell?" asked
Cecile.

"We're not all going to hell," said Dorothy, calmly. "God saves His
elect."

"Who are the elect?" demanded Samuel, faintly hopeful.

"Nobody knows," replied Cecile, grimly; "but I guess--"

"Benny," broke in Dorothy, "read your lesson! Cecile, stop your
chatter!" And Benny, cheerful and sceptical, read his lines:

"When by thpectators I behold
What beauty doth adorn me,
Or in a glath when I behold
How thweetly God did form me.
Hath God thuch comeliness bethowed
And on me made to dwell?--
What pity thuch a pretty maid
Ath I thoud go to hell!"

And Benny giggled.

"Benjamin," said Cecile, in an awful voice, "are you not terrified at
what you read?"

"Huh!" said Benny, "I'm not a 'pretty maid'; I'm a boy."

"It's all the same, little dunce!" insisted Cecile.

"Doeth God thay little boyth are born to be damned?" he asked, uneasily.

"No, no," interrupted Dorothy; "God saves His elect, I tell you. Don't
you remember what He says?

"'You sinners are, and such a share
As sinners may expect;
Such you shall have; for I do save
None but my own elect.'

"And you see," she added, confidently, "I think we all are elect, and
there's nothing to be afraid of. Benny, stop sniffing!"

"Are you sure?" asked Cecile, gloomily.

Dorothy, stitching serenely, answered: "I am sure God is fair."

"Oh, everybody knows that," observed Cecile. "What we want to know is,
what does He mean to do with us."

"If we're good," added Samuel, fervently.

"He will damn us, perhaps," said Ruyven, sucking his paint-brush and
looking critically at his work.

"Damn us? Why?" inquired Dorothy, raising her eyes.

"Oh, for all that sin we were born in," said Ruyven, absently.

"But that's not fair," said Dorothy.

"Are you smarter than a clergyman?" sneered Ruyven.

Dorothy spread the white silk stocking over one knee. "I don't know,"
she sighed, "sometimes I think I am."

"Pride," commented Cecile, complacently. "Pride is sin, so there you
are, Dorothy."

"There you are, Dorothy!" said I, laughing from the doorway; and, "Oh,
Cousin Ormond!" they all chorused, scrambling up to greet me.

"Have a