"Do you want us to call her sister or Magdalen, the whole scriptural
mouthful at once?"

"I believe that to call her Magdalen or Maidie, as my father did,
would make her feel nearer to us than the formal way of saying
'Sister.'"

"I don't mind about changing," said Paula. "She can never be the
same to us as dear Sister Mena."

"She is so tiresome," added Vera. "She bothers so over my music;
calling out if I make ever so small a slip, and making me go over all
again."

"Well she may," said Paula. "She is making little Tick play so
nicely. Just listen! But I can't bear her dragging us off to that
horrid old Arnscombe Church and the nasty stuffy Sunday school."

"That reminds me," said Agatha; "Gillian Merrifield met a relation of
Mr. Earl's, who said that Miss Prescott had brought quite new life
and spirit to the poor old man, who had been getting quite out of
heart for want of any one to help and sympathise with him."

"Then he ought to make his services more Catholic," said Paula. "But
nothing will wean her from the old parochial idea. Why, she would
not let me give my winter stockings to Sister Beata's poor girls, but
made me darn them and put them by."

"Yes, and mine, which were bad enough to give away, she made me darn
first," cried Vera. "She is ever so much worse than the superlative