We turned round, and found that Miss Moffat from next door had quietly opened the door and come in amongst us. She was a little old maid whom we all loved. All through our illness she had been in and out, changing her dress most carefully each time to avoid spreading the infection. Books and fruit had been plentifully supplied, and we were not surprised to see her hands full of books and papers now. [Illustration] "A little Sunday reading, my dears. I thought you might be in want of some. Are you telling each other of your faults, may I ask?" "Doodle-doo is trying to preach," Tater said, her snub nose well in the air; "but his crows, like those of his namesake, are about nothing at all." "And what is the subject?" "'One thing thou lackest,' was the text I gave him," I said glibly. "Don't look so shocked, Miss Moffat; we weren't making fun of it." "It is a solemn verse to take up so lightly," said our friend gravely. "Do you know the occasion of our Lord's saying those words?" "Yes. Don't preach to us, there's a good soul;" and Pat threw up his long arms and stretched himself with a terrific yawn. "I am on my way to read to a blind woman," said Miss Moffitt briskly; "there are your books." Then looking over her spectacles at us in her quaint, sweet way, she said— "There is 'one thing lacking' with each one of you boys and girls. Try and find it out for yourselves, and let me know when you succeed in getting it. I should not like to see any of you one day 'weighed in the balances and found wanting.'" And then she left us. There was silence for a few minutes; we were busy distributing the literature which had been brought us. Then Thunder observed, knitting his black brows into a heavier frown than usual— "I shouldn't have thought little Moffat was a religious person; but you can never see through a woman—they're always up to artful dodges." "She isn't religious," Doodle-doo said; "she only wanted to add force to my little preach." "Shut up," said Pat, giving a kick at him as he passed the sofa; "my 'beastly temper' won't stand a word more from you." "She's not a goody person, nor a prig," argued Taters, "so she can't be religious; and her face is as round and ruddy as an apple." "What is a religious person?" I asked. "I don't mean a hypocrite, but a real true one. What do they believe that we don't believe? Why should it be such an awfully canty thing to be good?" "Are you going to try it, Li?" "I sometimes think," said Honey meditatively, as she deliberately poked her slippered foot into the red-hot embers and stirred them into a blaze, "that after all 'we' may be the hypocrites. What did we kneel down and pray for in church this morning?—'Grant that we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life.' We haven't the smallest intention of doing it." "Don't talk rot!" was Pat's response to this. And, turning to our books, we dropped the subject. CHAPTER II Thinking [Illustration] "WHAT'S the row with old Li?"