"How do you expect these boys to be obedient when you don't set them a good example?" Her sorrowful smile was purely muscular in its origin. "I am to blame, mother----" Mrs. Milo returned to the errant soloist. "And you were willfully disobeying, you wicked little boy!" A queer look came into Ikey's eyes. His angular face seemed to draw up. His ears moved under their eaves of curling hair. "Ye-e-es, Missis," he drawled calmly. Mrs. Milo was a judge of moods. She knew she had gone far enough. She assumed a tone of deepest regret. "Ungrateful children!" she said, distributing her censure. "Think of the little orphans who don't get the care you get! Think----" And arraigning the sagging Clarence, "Don't lean against Miss Milo." Ikey grinned. Experience had taught him that when Mrs. Milo permitted herself to halt a scolding, she would not resume it. Furthermore, a loud, burring bell was ringing from somewhere beyond the Church, and that summons meant the choirmaster, a personage who was really formidable. Before Sue, he raised that candle-like finger. "Practice," announced Mrs. Milo, pointing to the passage. Three boys drew churchward on sluggish feet. But Sue held Ikey back. "His finger hurts," she comforted. "Come! We'll get some liniment." "Susan!"--gently reproving again. "There's liniment in the Dispensary." Up, as before a teacher, came Ikey's well hand. "Please, Missis, de Orphan medicine, she is not a speck of good." Sue added her plea. "No, mother, she is not a speck." Mrs. Milo shook her head sadly. "You're not going to help these children by coddling them," she reminded. And to Ikey, "Let Nature repair the bruise." She waved all four to go. "Out of here, you little rascals!" Sue covered her chagrin by a laugh. "Oh, you go that way,"--this to Ikey, who was treading too close upon the heels of the still mourning Clarence. She guided the wounded chorister toward the Close. Ikey took his banishment with a sulky look at Mrs. Milo. "Nature," she had recommended to him. He did not know any such person, and resented being turned over to a stranger. Mrs. Milo saw the look. "Wait!" And as he halted, "Is that your handkerchief, Sue?" "Why--why--er--I think so." "Kindly take it." Gently as this was said, it was for Ikey the last straw. As Sue unwound the square of linen, he emitted a heart-rending "Ow!" and fell to weeping stormily. "Oh, boo-hoo! Oh! Oh! Oh, dis is wat I gets for singin' in a Christian choir!" With which stinging rebuke, he fled the drawing-room. "Now, Susan." Mrs. Milo folded her hands and regarded her daughter sorrowfully. "Yes, mother?" "Haven't I asked you not to allow those boys to call you Momsey?" "Yes, mother, but----" The white-clad figure in the bay-window stirred, rose, and came forward, and Hattie ranged herself at Sue's side, the whole movement plainly one of defense.