But Amy had begun to laugh and could say nothing. Only waved her hands weakly and looked at the clergyman, whose cap was much more over his ear than before.
“Right in the middle of Sunday’s sermon, young ladies,” said the minister, with apparent sternness. “If that sermon is a failure, Amy and Jessie, I shall call on one of you girls—perhaps both of you—to step up into the pulpit and take my place. Remember that, now!” and he marched away in apparent dudgeon; but they heard him singing “Onward Christian Soldiers” before he got to the bottom of the upper flight of stairs.
“But it certainly was a great to-do,” murmured Jessie, as she tried to see what the boys were doing.
She was able to advise them after a minute. But Amy insisted upon opening one of the windows and so getting more of the smoke out of the long room.
“You boys don’t even know how to make a fire in a fire-pot without creating a disturbance,” she said.
Nell came up from the kitchen where she had been consulting the cook about the meals, and Sally came tagging after her, of course, with a cookie in one hand and a rag doll in the other.
“This Sally is nothing but a yawning cavity walking on hollow stilts,” declared Nell, who “fussed” good-naturedly, just as her father did. “She is constantly begging from the cook between meals, and her eyes are the biggest things about her when she comes to the table.”
“Ain’t,” said Sally, shaking her curls in denial.
“Ain’t what?” asked Jessie.
“Ain’t—ain’t if you please,” declared the little girl, revealing the fact that her sister had tried to train her in politeness.