"Like them all!" echoed Miss Dora. "Oh, impossible!"

"Not for us," said Prudence. "We are used to it, you know. We always
like people."

"That is ridiculous," said Miss Dora. "It is absolutely impossible. One
can't! Of course, as Christians, we must tolerate, and try to help every
one. But Christian tolerance and love are----"

"Oh, excuse me, but--really I can't believe there is such a thing as
Christian tolerance," said Prudence firmly. "There is Christian love,
and--that is all we need." Then leaning forward: "What do you do, Miss
Avery, when you meet people you dislike at very first sight?"

"Keep away from them," was the grim reply.

"Exactly! And keep on disliking them," said Prudence triumphantly.
"It's very different with us. When we dislike people at first sight, we
visit them, and talk to them, and invite them to the parsonage, and
entertain them with our best linen and silverware, and keep on getting
friendlier and friendlier, and--first thing you know, we like them fine!
It's a perfectly splendid rule, and it has never failed us once. Try it,
Miss Avery, do! You will be enthusiastic about it, I know."

So the Misses Avery concluded that Prudence was very young, and couldn't
seem to quite outgrow it! She was not entirely responsible. And they
wondered, with something akin to an agony of fear, if the younger girls
"had it, too!" Therefore the Misses Avery kept watch at their respective
windows, and when Miss Alice cried excitedly, "Quick! Quick! They are
coming!" they trooped to Miss Alice's window with a speed that would have