nistered under the table.

"He won't let me tell," said Sammy.

"He's always telling what I say," said Roy. "Why don't he speak for
himself?"

"Well, I never!" said Sammy. "I thought you was too bashful to speak,
and so I'd do it for you."

"What was it, Roy?"

"Why, I said, when I owned a horse, if he should happen to shy, you
know, I'd cure him of it just as that minister cured Peter."

Here there was a pushing back of chairs and a stir and commotion, for
the last stitch was set to the quilting. Then the binding was put on,
and the quilt was finished; but the September afternoon was finished
too, and Lovina Tibbs lighted the lamps in the dining-room before she
rang the bell for tea.

Lovina had exerted herself in her special department to make this last
meeting of the Society a festive occasion. She gave to the visitors
what she called "a company supper"--biscuits deliciously sweet and
light, cold chicken, plum-preserves, sponge-cake, and for a central dish
a platter containing little frosted cakes, with the letters "P.Q.S."
traced on each in red sugar-sand.

When the feast was over, one last-admiring look given to "our quilt" and
the girls and boys had all gone home, Susie and Mollie sat with their
mother in Miss Ruth's room.

"Auntie," said Susie, who for some moments had been gazing thoughtfully
in the fire, "I have been thinking how nice it would be if, when our
quilt goes to the home missionary, all the interesting stories you have
told us while we were sewing on it could go too. Then the children in
the family would think so much more of it--don't you see? I wish there
was some way for a great many more boys and girls to hear those
stories."

"Why, that's just what Florence Austin was saying this afternoon," said
Mollie. "She said she wished all those stories could be printed in a
book."

"You hear the suggestion, Ruth," Mrs. Elliot said.

But Ruth smiled and shook her head,

"They are such simple little stories," said she.

"For simple little people to read--'for of such is the kingdom of
heaven.' Think, Ruth, if, instead of one Eliza Jones 'making butterflies
out of fennel-worms' next summer, and in that way getting at some
wonderful facts far more effectively than any book could teach her,
there should be a dozen, aria perhaps as many boys resolving, like Roy,
to use kindness and patience instead of cruelty and force in their
dealings with a dumb beast. But you know all this without my prea