How to impart religious instruction was the thing that troubled Beth most: she used to lie awake at night thinking out the problem. She found that Emily had learnt many texts and hymns in the Sunday-school to which she went regularly, and Beth made her repeat them, and soon knew them all by heart herself; but she did not think that she taught Emily enough. One day in church, however, she thought of a way to extend her teaching. Bernadine had joined her class for fun, and was playing at learning too; and now Beth proposed that they should fit up a chapel in the acting-room, and resolve themselves occasionally into a clergyman and congregation. A chair with the bottom knocked out was the pulpit, and a long narrow box stood on end was the reading-desk. Beth was the parson, of course, in a white sheet filched from the soiled-clothes bag, and changed for a black shawl for the sermon. She read portions of Scripture standing, she read prayers on her knees, she led a hymn; and then she got into the black shawl and preached. What these discourses were about, she could not remember in after years; but they must have been fascinating, for the congregation listened unwearied so long as she chose to go on. Emily was a disappointment in one way: she had no imagination. Beth pretended to take her photograph one day, after the manner of the photographers on the sands. "Now, this is the picture," she said, showing her a piece of glass. "But there isn't no picture on it," said Emily, staring hard at the glass. "How stupid you are," said Beth, disgusted. "Look again." "There isn't," Emily protested. "Just you show it to Bernadine." "You should say _Miss_ Bernadine," that young lady admonished her. A few minutes afterwards Emily corrected Bernadine for not saying miss to Beth and herself. Beth tried to explain, but Emily could not see why she should say miss to them if they did not say miss to her and to each other. Poor Mrs. Caldwell was in great straits for want of money at this time. She had scarcely enough to pay for their meagre fare, and her own clothes and the children's were almost beyond patching and darning. Beth surprised her several times sitting beside the dining-table with the everlasting mending on her lap, fretting silently, and the child's heart was wrung. There was some legal difficulty, and letters which added to her mother's trouble came to the house continually. The same faculty made Beth either the naughtiest or the best of children; the difference depended on her heart: if that were touched, she was all sympathy; but if no appeal was made to her feelings, her daily doings were the outcome of so many erratic impulses acted on without consideration, merely to vary the disastrous monotony of those long idle afternoons.