“Will you tell us what it is?”
“It was letting Matthew, Mark, Luke and John out,” triumphantly.
“Letting whom out?” asked Miss Howard, wondering what upon earth was to follow.
“Yes, don’t you remember they let them out during Elizabeth’s reign?”
“Let them out of where?”
“Why, out of the Tower, to be sure, and it made such a difference in a history some man was writing just then, because they had had a lot to do with it somehow—I don’t remember just what it was. Maybe one of the other girls can.”
By this time all the other girls were nearly dying of suppressed laughter, and when poor Pauline turned to them so seriously it proved the last straw, and such a shout as greeted her fairly made the wall ring. It was too much for Miss Howard, and, with one last look of despair, she gave way and laughed till she cried.
When the laugh had subsided and they had recovered their breath, Miss Howard endeavored to explain to the brilliant expounder of English history that Queen Elizabeth had had more to do with keeping Matthew, Mark, Luke and John out of the Bible than in the Tower of London.