Wasn't the old Caledonian one when he praised up the weaker portion of the community in that ridiculous fashion?" but as Cathy did not condescend to reply, the passage of arms stopped. The sisterhood were all gathered in the pleasant parlor at the Evergreens. A bright-eyed, faded little woman lay on the couch in the bay window knitting some bright-coloured strips for an antimacassar. She looked up and nodded pleasantly as the friends entered. "You always come to us on a wet afternoon, Catherine, when visitors are most welcome. Faith was reading to us; I dare say she will be glad of a rest by this time. We are in the fourth volume of D'Aubigné's 'Reformation.' Put a marker in the place, Faith, and then we shall lose no time when we open the book again. Do you know D'Aubigné, Miss Marriott? it is most improving reading for young people." "Could this active-looking, talkative little woman be the hopeless invalid of whom she had heard so much?" Queenie asked herself, with some bewilderment, as she sat down in the comfortable chair that Miss Faith brought to her. Though it was summer a little fire burned in the grate; the window had been closed to exclude the dampness. Miss Faith's cheeks looked unusually pale; her eyes were full of a soft weariness. "Charity is so fond of D'Aubigné; I think he tires me a little. It is very good reading, of course; but in this summer weather, and with the drip, drip of the rain on the leaves--" "There were giants in those days," broke in Miss Hope, vigorously. "Luther was a grand man, and so was Zwingle." Miss Hope spoke in a loud but not unpleasing voice. She was a stout, fresh-colored woman, not without a certain degree of comeliness. In her young days she had been too high-coloured for beauty, but now the grey hair toned and softened her down. Miss Prudence was less pleasing: she was tall and angular, wore spectacles, and had that slight appendage on the upper lip which is not a strictly feminine adjunct. Her voice was thin in quality and somewhat harsh. Queenie felt that Ted's _soubriquet_ of "the dragon" was not badly bestowed. It was she who held the purse-strings of the little household, and who guarded the proprieties. Miss Hope, in spite of her strong leaning to the Plymouth Brothers, and her somewhat injudicious tyrannies in the matter of temperance and total abstinence, was far less rigid than her strong-minded sister. No wonder Miss Faith drooped in such an atmosphere! and then Miss Charity's voice! Queenie, who was sensitive on such matters, found fault with the ceaseless flow of words that proceeded from the bay-window. "She is egotistical, selfish; she works that poor sister of hers to death, I know she does," thought the girl to herself, with a certain youthful antagonism against oppression. "Miss Faith is a saint; but I wonder how she can bear it."