"This isn't playing school," Ellen answered, skillfully evading the first question. "Don't you know it's wicked to play on the Sabbath? Now sit right down." There was a good deal of her mother's sharpness in the way she said this, and plucked Bobby by the strings of his pinafore, until he took an uncomfortable seat upon an inverted flower-pot. Ellen opened a little yellow-covered book, and began. "Now answer, Jim! How many kinds of sin are there?" "Two," responded little Jim. "What are these two kinds, Bob?" "Original and actual," Bob answered. "What is original sin?" asked Ellen, raising one little forefinger to keep Bobby quiet. This was too hard a question for Jim, and with some stumbling Bobby succeeded in saying,-- "It is that sin in which I was conceived and born." "Now, Jim," said Ellen, "you can answer this question, 'cause it's only one word, and begins with 'y.'" "No fair!" cried Bob; "that's telling." But Ellen proceeded to give the question: "Doth original sin wholly defile you, and is it sufficient to send you to hell, though you had no other sin?" "Yes!" roared Jim, pleased at being certainly right. "What are you then by nature?" Ellen went on rather carelessly, for she was growing tired of the lesson. "I am an enemy to God, a child of Satan, and an heir of hell," answered Bobby promptly. "What will become of the wicked?" asked the little catechist. Bobby yawned, and then said contemptuously, "Oh, skip that,--cast into hell, of course." "You ought to answer right," Ellen said reprovingly, but she was glad to give the last question, "What will the wicked do forever in hell?" "They will roar, curse, and blaspheme God," said little Jim cheerfully; while Bobby, to show his joy that the lesson was done, leaned over on his flower-pot, and tried to stand on his head, making all the time an unearthly noise. "I'm roarin'!" he cried gayly. Ellen, freed from the responsibility of teaching, put the little yellow book quickly in her pocket, and said mysteriously, "Boys, if you won't ever tell, I'll tell you something." "I won't," said Jim, while Bobby responded briefly, "G'on." "Well, you know when the circus came,--you know the pictures on the fences?" "Yes!" said the little boys together. "'Member the beautiful lady, ridin' on a horse, and standin' on one foot?" "Yes!" the others cried, breathlessly. "Well," said Ellen slowly and solemnly, "when I get to be a big girl, that's what I'm going to be. I'm tired of catechism, and church, and those long blessings father asks, but most of catechism, so I'm going to run away, and be a circus." "Father'll catch you," said Jim; but Bobby, with envious depreciation, added,-- "How do you know but what circuses have catechism?" Ellen did not notice the lack of sympathy. "And I'm going to begin to practice now," she said.