"The trouble is, we do nothing. Two-thirds of our time is occupied in getting ready to do; and even then we can't half accomplish it. Then we don't stay ready, and have to begin the work all over again. Yesterday, for instance, there were three absences among the teachers; that means confusion, for each of those teachers have seven children who are thus thrown loose on the world. Think how much time we must consume in getting them seated somewhere, and under some one's care; and then imagine, if you can, the amount of time that they consume in saying, 'Our teacher doesn't do so, she does _so_.'" "What is the reason that the teachers in that room are so very irregular?" "Why, they are not irregular; that is as Sunday-school teachers rate regularity. To be sure, it would never do to be teaching a graded school, for instance, and be as careless as some of them are about regularity. But that is a different matter, of course; this is only a Sunday-school! But for all that, I think they do as well as the average. You see, Dr. Dennis, there are twenty of them, and if each one of them is present every Sunday in the year save three, that makes a good deal of regularity on their part, and yet averages absences every Sabbath to be looked after. Don't you see?" "I see," he said, smiling; "that is a mathematical way of putting it. There is reason in it, too. How in the world do you manage when there are vacancies?" "Which is always," Marion said, quickly. "There has not been a Sabbath since I have had charge when all the teachers were present; and I have taken pains to inquire of the former superintendent, who reports very much the same. Isn't it so in all schools, Dr. Dennis?" "Of course there must of necessity be some detentions; but not so many, probably, as there actually are, if we were in the habit of being very conscientious about these matters; still, I don't know that we are worse than others. But you haven't told me how you manage?"