"I am glad you have come to look after them," answered Catherine. "I won't be watch-dog much longer. They are too troublesome."
"What mischief are they doing now?"
"Every thing they can think of to worry me. Esther won't eat and can't sleep, and Mr. Hazard won't sleep and can't eat. She tries not to worry him, so she comes down on me with questions and books enough to frighten a professor. Do tell me what to say!"
"Where are your questions?" asked Strong.
"This morning she wanted to know what I thought of apostolic succession. She said she was reading some book by a Dr. Newman. What is apostolic succession?"
"A curious disease, quite common among the poorer classes of Sandwich
Islanders," replied Strong. "No one has ever found a cure for it."
"Don't laugh at us! We do nothing but cry now, except when Mr. Hazard is here, and then we pretend to be happy. When Esther cries, I cry too. That makes her laugh. It's our only joke, and we used to have so many."
"Don't you think it rather a moist joke?" asked Strong. "I take mine dry."
"I can't tell what she will think a joke," replied Catherine. "She asked me to-day what was my idea of heaven, and I said it was reading novels in church. She seemed to think this a rich bonanza of a joke, and laughed herself into hysterics, but I was as serious as Mr. Wharton's apostles."
"You are never so funny as when you are serious. Never be so any more!
Why don't you get her to paint?"