"Well, why not?" I returned, with a little spirit, for here was one of Carrie's old arguments. "If it be the work given us to do, it must be a useful life-work. It might be our duty to make artificial flowers for our livelihood--hundreds of poor creatures do that--and you would not scold them for waste of time, I suppose?" "Anyhow, it is not work enough for me," replied Carrie firmly, and passing over my clever argument with a dignified silence; "it is the drudgery of mere ornamentation that I hate. I will do my best for those dreadful children, Esther. Are they not pitiful little overdressed creatures? And I will try and please their mother though I have not a thought in common with her. And when I have finished my ornamental brick-making--told my tales of the bricks----" here she paused, and looked at me with a heightened color. "And what then?" I asked, rather crossly, for there was a flaw in her speech somewhere, and I could not find it out. "We shall see, my wise little sister," she said, letting go my arm with a kind pressure. "See, here is St. Barnabas; is it not a dear old building? Must you go back to Jack?" "Yes, I must," I answered, shortly. "_Laborare est orare_--to labor is to pray, in my case, Carrie;" and with that I left her. But Carrie's arguments had seriously discomposed me. I longed to talk it all out with Allan, and I do not think I ever missed him so much as I did that day. I am afraid I was rather impatient with Jack that morning; to be sure she was terribly awkward and inattentive; she would put her elbows on the table, and ink her fingers, and then she had a way of jerking her hair out of her eyes, which drove me nearly frantic. I began to think we really must send her to school. We had done away with the folding doors, they always creaked so, and had hung up some curtains in their stead; through the folds I could catch glimpses of dear mother leaning back in her chair, with Dot beside her. He was spelling over his lesson to her, in a queer, little sing-song voice, and they looked so cool and quiet that the contrast was quite provoking; and there was Carrie kneeling in some dim corner, and soothing her perturbed spirits with softly-uttered psalms and prayers. "Jack," I returned, for the sixth time, "I cannot have you kick the table in that schoolboy fashion." Jack looked at me with roguish malice in her eyes. "You are not quite well, Esther; you have got a pain in your temper, haven't you, now?" I don't know what I might have answered, for Jack was right, and I was as cross as possible, only just at that moment Uncle Geoffrey put his head in at the door, and stood beaming on us like an angel of deliverance.