They had ten or twelve little children at their party, and Dinah brought
them sandwiches, cakes, and milk, and they had all the cherries they
could eat. Edith taught them one of her Sunday-school hymns, and Johnnie
made Luce perform all his most cunning tricks for their entertainment.
Mabel lent her new doll to the poorest girl, to take home for the night,
on the promise that it should surely come home next morning.

The promise was kept.

When the company had gone, Aunt Maria called them in, and made them take
a thorough bath, and put on clean clothes all the way through. Then she
bade each sit down, in the room with her, and read a chapter in the
Bible. As Mabel could not read, she gave her a picture Bible to look at.
She sat by, with so grave a face, and had so little to say, that they
all began to feel uncomfortable, and wished themselves somewhere else.
Edith's face was covered with blushes, Mabel began to swallow a lump in
her throat, and Johnnie at last, growing angry, determined to stand it
no longer. He shut up his Bible, and marched to Aunt Maria, who looked
at him through her spectacles, and said:

"Well, sir? Who told you to shut up your book?"

"It does no good to read the Bible when anybody's mad with you," said
Johnnie. "What have we done, Aunt Maria?"

"I did not _say_ you had done anything."

"But you look so cross, and sit up so straight, and--who ever heard of
reading the Bible, in the middle of the afternoon, on a week day?" said
Johnnie with an air of assurance.