"I wonder how it is mothers never think of themselves," said Alfred. "They are always fussing to make us happy, and we don't do things for them at all."
Katie thought of the words:—
"As one whom his mother comforteth,"
which had been in last Sunday's lesson, but did not say them aloud, only it was a comfort to her to think of the other holy words which say of a mother and her child: "She may forget, yet will not I forget thee." No matter how much a mother may love, God loves us better still.
One day about that time, Bertie Sanderson, following her usual custom of looking around the room instead of at her work, saw something that caused her to start, open her eyes very wide, and then mutter half-aloud:—
"Oho! the saints are not so saintly after all. It's dishonest to look around the room, is it? I wonder what you call that!"
"Bertie Sanderson, talking, as usual," said Miss Peters, marking the
fine upon the slate which she always carried with her," and Katie
Robertson, too," noting a sudden flush upon the face of the latter.
"I am surprised."
"I did not speak," said Katie, respectfully, but with some confusion.
"There's no harm in talking to yourself," said Bertie, in the rude tone which she usually addressed to Miss Peters.
"Were not those girls talking, Gretchen," said the superintendent, appealing to a stout German who worked near the others.