‘Bravo, Jean,’ said Charlotte Bigley, sarcastically. ‘Now, let us hear what the big things are.’
Jean was on her mettle, and she gave herself a moment’s desperate reflection.
‘Well, things like helping the poor, and taking food to people who are starving, and giving up your pocket-money to buy things for them, and not minding how dirty they are, nor how wicked and dishonest and–and tipsy,’ she proclaimed.
The junior playroom was much impressed by this new view of the Canon’s sermon.
‘Isn’t Jean clever?’ demanded Angela, proudly, of her immediate neighbours. One of these happened to be Barbara, who fully agreed with her, but still appeared a little puzzled.
‘It will be very difficult to do all that,’ she observed. ‘How can we do things for the poor, when we never see any poor?’
‘You never know when the chance may come,’ answered Jean, who was rarely at a loss. ‘Besides, there’s the holidays.’
‘What!’ said Mary, in a voice of dismay. ‘Have we got to wait till the holidays before we can be unselfish?’
‘Well,’ replied Jean, vaguely, ‘you can’t say that, for an opportunity may occur at any minute. What we’ve got to do is to be on the look-out for it.’
This unsatisfactory way of disposing of the Canon’s address fell very flat after the recent excitement in the juniors’ room concerning it; and most of Jean’s listeners grumbled loudly as soon as she was out of hearing. But Babs and Angela unhesitatingly threw in their lot with Jean. They were not quite sure what she meant, but they never doubted her right to be their leader in this as in everything.