"Oh, no," said Miss Mary, with a little laugh, "they're most of them my
Sunday-school scholars, you know."
"That's all the more reason that you ought not to be bothered with them week days," observed Mr. Dyce. "Now why can't you sit down here and amuse me?" He pushed up an easy-chair into a cosy-corner, then drew up an ottoman, on which he sat down.
"Oh, look at that Mr. Dyce," said Clem, quite in a flow of spirits, as she threaded her needle with a strand of violet silk; "he's going to keep Miss Mary off there all to himself. What did make him come this afternoon?"
"Well, he isn't going to have Miss Mary!" cried Alexia Rhys, twitching her pink worsted with an impatient hand. "Horrors! Now I've gone and gotten that into a precious snarl. The very idea! She's our Sunday-school teacher. Oh, Miss Mary!" she called suddenly.
Miss Taylor, just sitting down in the easy-chair, turned. "What is it,
Alexia?"—while Mr. Dyce frowned. At which Alexia laughed over at him.
"Please show me about my work," she begged.
"You little tyrant!" called Mr. Dyce, as Miss Mary went over.
"Do I slip one stitch and then knit two?" asked Alexia innocently. Polly, next to her on a cricket, opened wide eyes.
"Yes," said Miss Mary, "just the same as you have been knitting all along,
Alexia."
"Well, I couldn't think of anything else to ask," said Alexia coolly. Then she laid hold of Miss Mary's pretty, gray gown.