They were quiet children, always good and obedient, but rather dull.
They did not seem to understand games, and seldom laughed. How very
different they were to Sophia Jane! Certainly she was not nearly so
well behaved, but then she was a far more amusing companion. The
afternoon seemed endless.

"Don't you ever play with dolls?" Susan asked at last.

"No," answered Lucy the eldest, "we are too old. Eva has one, but we
put away our dolls on my last birthday."

"What _do_ you play at?" inquired Susan.

"We haven't much time to play," replied Lucy seriously, "because we
belong to so many things."

"What things?"

"There's the `Early Rising Society,' and the `Half-hour Needlework for
the East-End Society,' and the `Reading Society,' and the `Zenana
Meetings;' and we're all `Young Abstainers.'"

"What's that?" asked Susan.

"It's the children's temperance society. We pledge ourselves not to
take alcohol, and to prevent others from taking it if we can. There's a
meeting once a month. It's our turn next time to have it here."

"What do you do when you meet?" inquired Susan.

"Some of us work," said Lucy, "and someone reads aloud."

"And then," added little Eva, "we have tea."

There was a faint look of satisfaction on Eva's face as she said this.

"Eva thinks tea is the best part of all," said Julia, the next sister,
rather scornfully.

"Well," said Susan, "I expect I should too, because I'm not fond of
needlework. Unless," she added, "the book was _very_ interesting to
listen to."

"Sometimes it is," said Julia, "and sometimes it isn't. Are you fond of
reading?"

"Some books," answered Susan.

"If you belonged to the Reading Society," put in Lucy, "you'd have to
read an improving book for half an hour every day, and perhaps at the
end of the year you'd get a prize."

"I suppose you mean an uninteresting book like a lesson book," said
Susan. "I shouldn't like that."

"Well, of course, it mustn't be a _story_-book," said Julia.

"Would the _Pilgrim's Progress_ do?" asked Susan.

The little girls looked doubtfully at each other. "I'm not sure," said
Lucy, "whether that that _would_ be considered an improving book."

Susan proceeded to make more inquiries about the various societies, but
she did not think any of them sounded attractive, and certainly had no
wish to join the little Winslows in belonging to them. This filled up
the time until four o'clock, when, with Miss Pink, they all se