d her
sternly.

"Worse and worse," he said. "I would rather feel that you ate them here,
where temptation lurks, than that you carried them away to devour at
your ease. I shall surely have to speak to your parents, little girls.
Who are you?"

Isabel looked to Phebe for support; but Phebe was far down the road,
running to meet her brother, who had just come in sight, with Mulvaney,
the old Irish setter, at his heels.

"I--I'm Isabel St. John," she confessed.

"Not the minister's girl?"

She nodded.

"Well, I swan!" And Mr. Rogers picked up his hoe, and fell to pondering
upon the problem of infant depravity, while Isabel turned and scuttled
after her friend.

"What do you want, Hu?" Phebe was calling.

"Hope says it's time for you to come home now, and get dressed."

"Bother! I don't want to. Isabel and I are having fun."

Hubert took her hand and turned it palm upward.

"It must be a queer kind of fun, from the color of you," he observed.
"But come, Babe, Hope is waiting."

Isabel had joined them and fallen into step at their side.

"What a queer name Hope is!" she said critically, for she wished to
convince Phebe that she and all her family were under the ban of her
lasting displeasure.

"It is only short for Hopestill, and it isn't any queerer name than
Isabel."

"Hopestill! That's worse. Where did she ever get such a name?"

But Hubert interposed.

"It was mamma's name, Isabel; so we all like it. Let's not talk about it
any more."

Towards noon of that day, Theodora, who had taken refuge in her tree,
heard Hope's voice calling her. Reluctantly she scrambled down from her
perch and presented herself.

"There's so much to be done, Teddy," Hope said; "would you mind dusting
the parlor?"

Theodora hated dusting. Her idea of that solemn household rite was to
stand in the middle of the room and flap a feather duster in all
directions. To-day, however, she took the cloth which Hope offered,
without pausing to argue over the need for its use.

Once in the parlor, she moved slowly around the room, diligently wiping
the dust from exposed surfaces, without taking the trouble to move so
much as a vase. At the piano, she paused and looked up at her mother's
picture which hung there above it. It was a life-size crayon portrait,
copied from a photograph that had been taken only a few weeks before
Mrs. McAlister's death, and the sweet pictured face and the simple,
every-day gown were the face and gown w