you like to sit on the floor when you were fifteen?"

"Janice, thou 't more careless every day in bed-making,"
ejaculated Mrs. Meredith, making a sudden dive toward the
bed, as if she desired to escape the question. She smoothed
the gay patchwork quilt, seemed to feel something underneath,
and the next moment pulled out the hidden volume, which was
bound, as the bookseller's advertisements phrased it, in "half
calf, neat, marbled sides." One stern glance she gave the two
red-faced culprits, and, opening the book, read out in a voice
that was in itself an impeachment, "The Adventures of Alonzo
and Amaryllis!"

There was an instant's silence, full of omen to the culprits,
and then Mrs. Meredith's wrath found vent.

"Janice Meredith!" she cried. "On a Sabbath morning,
when thee shouldst be setting thy thoughts in a fit order for
church! And thou, Tabitha Drinker!"

"It 's all my fault, Mrs. Meredith," hurriedly asserted Tabitha.
"I brought the book with me from Trenton, and 't was I suggested
that we go on reading this morning."

"Six hours of spinet practice thou shalt have to-morrow,
miss," announced Mrs. Meredith to her daughter, "and this
afternoon thou shalt say over the whole catechism. As for
thee, Tabitha, I shall feel it my duty to write thy father of his
daughter's conduct. Now hurry and make ready for church."
And Mrs. Meredith started to leave the room.