That evening Mrs. Hart, as they all sat in her own private parlor, said to her daughters:
"Girls, away with you. I can't move a step without stumbling over one of you. You are always crowding into my sanctum, as if there was not an inch of room for you anywhere else. Vanish. I want to talk to Edith."
"It's your own fault that we crowd in here, mother," said the eldest.
"You are the loadstone that draws us."
"I'll get a lot of stones to throw at you and drive you out with," said the old lady, with mock severity.
The youngest daughter precipitated herself on her mother's neck, exclaiming:
"Wouldn't that be fun, to see jolly old mother throwing stones at us.
She would wrap them in eider-down first."
"Scamper; the whole bevy of you," said the old lady, laughing; and Edith, with a sigh, contrasted this "mother's room" with the one which she and her sisters shunned as the place where their "teeth were set on edge."
"My dear," said Mrs. Hart, her face becoming grave and troubled, "there is one thing in my Christian work that discourages me. We reclaim so few of the poor girls that have gone astray. I understand, from Mrs. Ranger, that your sister was at the Home, but that she left it. How can we accomplish more? We do everything we can for them."
"I don't think earthly remedies can meet their case," said Edith, in a low tone.
"I agree with you," said Mrs. Hart, earnestly, "but we do give them religious instruction."