absolute cruelty of giving someone else a paper of chocolates while I'm present. By the way, Winnie, let's go into the kitchen and make some taffy, while my mother instructs your mother how to bring up children in the way they should go; for that she knows how to do it, witness your Uncle Fred and myself as bright and shining examples."

But for once Winnie held back. At last she said: "Norah won't like it; she's cross to-day. She wouldn't help me get Ralph ready to go down town."

"Oh, Winnie, I'm afraid you've been at your old tricks. But come on; I'll manage Norah, and she has probably forgiven you before this."

This proved to be the case, and Norah, who was very fond of Aunt Kitty, was so good-natured, not even grumbling about the "muss," that Winnie felt as if she were having coals of fire heaped on her head; and, not to be outdone in generosity, contritely begged Norah's pardon for the way she had spoken to her in the afternoon.

CHAPTER IV.
A RAINY DAY.

dictated Miriam to a group of girls in the school-room, who were "cramming" for the February examination, and who had hurried back at dinner time for that purpose.

"What a queer jumble that makes!" said Winnie. "I believe I'd rather copy it from the book. Don't you think that last line's odd?—'Do not strive to grasp them all.' I thought that was just what we ought to do, isn't it?"

"I asked Miss Brownlow that question yesterday," said Ernestine Alroy, a tall, pale and thoughtful-looking girl, "and she said that Miss Procter didn't mean that we were to let any of them go, but that we are not to try to seize them all at once; that it would be like anything else—if our hands were too full, we'd be sure to drop something. She said we must take this 'Memory Gem' in connection with the motto on the board, 'Do the duty that lies nearest thee,' and that if we followed the advice in both of them, we'd be sure not to let any of our duties go undone."

"Ernestine, you always did like to preach," said Josie Thompson, making a wry face over the pickle she was eating. "I think it's quite bad enough to have to learn Memory Gems, with all the hideous punctuation, and expect to stand an examination—and they always pick out the one you know the least about—with five per cent. off for a comma left out or put in the wrong place, ten for a misspelled word, and so on until, by the time my 'Gems' are corrected, there's no per cent. left at all. I say all this is bad enough, without having to understand and explain them." And she stopped to take breath, quite exhausted by her long speech.

"Perhaps, if you troubled yourself a little more about the meaning, you'd get higher marks occasionally," said Miriam.

"Oh, who cares for marks anyhow? I'm getting sick of the eternal word 'Duty!' Miss Brownlow never misses an occasion to make use of it. Then we're always learning some selection with the same word in it, and now you girls have taken it up and there's no knowing if you will ever stop. As for me, I'm going to enjoy myself while I'm young. I guess I'll live just as long, if I don't worry myself to death."

The brighter girls laughed, and Miriam said, with quick mimicry, "I think you will live just as long, if you don't worry yourself to death. What a speech! Well, I think you're right; you'll live forever, if worry is the only thing that can kill."

"Well, laugh as much as you please; you can all plod along, if you want to. I'm going to have a good time."

"It is hard, though," said Winnie, plaintively; "it's much nicer to do the things we like to do than those we ought to do, especially when none of us want to do things that are very wrong."

"It's harder to catch up," said Ernestine, "than to keep straight on; and I think if we'd all pray for help not to neglect our duties, we'd find it easier."

None of the girls laughed at this, for Ernestine was so devoted to her ideas of religion, and so brave in the profession of them, that if she thought it was her duty, she would have knelt down right there and prayed aloud for them all.

"Well, this isn't learning the 'Gem,'" said Fannie Allen decisively; and then for a few moments nothing was heard but the scratching of pencils, as Miriam went on dictating:

After the bell had rung for school to commence, the afternoon wore dismally away. A steady, drenching rain was pouring down as if it intended never to stop. Under the circumstances there could be no recess, which added to the general feeling of weariness, restlessness and disgust.

Each recitation was a recapitulation, which made the more studious or those with the better memories feel as if there were "nothing new under the sun," and gave to the triflers, or those to whom study was a continual climbing of the "Hill Difficulty," a confused impression of hearing something they had heard before, but failed to remember just when or where or how.

To add to the discomfort, there was much copying to be done from the blackboard, and, as it was dark and gloomy, there was a complaint of not being able to see, until the front seats were filled with a crowd of tired, discontented girls, with their young faces puckered up into all sorts of frowns and grimaces. Even the best-natured among the teachers were conscious of an utter failure to keep from showing irritation, and they were made to sigh for a royal road both to learning and to teaching. It was with a general sigh of relief that the bell announcing the hour of dismission was heard.

But the discomfort was not yet over. The halls and dressing-rooms were filled with an odor of wet wool and rubber; rain-cloaks and rubbers were confusedly mixed, and Miss Brownlow reminded the complainers, in a most irritating manner, of the number of times she had urged them all to mark their gossamers and overshoes, and positively forbade them to expect any interference from her if anything were lost. Then some of the girls ran down stairs, and all were ordered back; and, it being impossible to distinguish the culprits, the innocent suffered with the guilty, so that it was nearly five o'clock before they were finally allowed to descend the stairs, and they had been hearing the exasperating shouts of freedom from the boys under the windows for a full half hour.

Miriam and Winnie, walking home under the same umbrella, felt their desire to be good and the courage to strive for it, at the lowest ebb. Winnie said petulantly, "I wish there were no such thing as school! It's dig, dig, dig, and then it's cram, cram, cram, until, at last, you don't know whether you know anything or not! I'm just sick of it!"

"You'd feel more disagreeable if you'd lost the third pair of rubbers this winter, and had wet feet. I don't see why it is that it's always my rubbers that are gone, anyway. Mamma will say that I grow more heedless every day of my life; that I never will learn to take care of anything; and will wonder if I think papa is a millionaire. I wish now that I'd marked that last pair of rubbers."

"Oh, dear! It's so hard to do right, and not