It was Dulce whose pink cheeks were burning now.

“Oh, Phillis! how could you? It is too dreadful even to think about! That fat old thing, too! Why, she is twice as big as Mrs. Squails!”

“Beggars cannot be choosers, my dear,” replied Phillis, airily; for rest was pleasant, and the fruit was good, and it was so delicious to feel all that was over and she was safe in her nest again; and then the pleasure of talking it all over! “Do you know—?” she began, in a disconnected manner, and then sat and stared at her sisters with luminous gray eyes, until they begged to know what the new idea was.

“Oh, nothing,” she replied, and colored a little. And then she blurted out, in an oddly-ashamed way, “it was talking to you two dears that put it in my head. But I could not help thinking that moment that if one is ever good enough to get to heaven, one of the greatest pleasures will be to talk about all our past miseries and difficulties, and how the angels helped us! and, though you may laugh at me,”—they were doing nothing of the kind, only admiring her with all their might,—“I have a kind of fancy that even my ‘Trimmings, not Squails’ episode may have a different look up there!”

“My dear,” returned Nan, gently, for she loved all speeches of this sort, being a devout little soul and truly pious, “nothing was further from my thoughts than to laugh at you, for the more we think in this way the grander our work will appear to us. Mrs. Trimmings may be fat and vulgar, but when you were measuring her and answering her so prettily—and I know how nicely you would speak, Phil—I think you were as brave as one of those old knights—I cannot remember their names—who set out on some lofty quest or other!”

“I suppose the child means Sir Galahad,” observed Phillis, with a groan at Nan’s ignorance. “Oh, Nannie, I wish I could say,—

“‘My strength is as the strength of ten,
Because my heart is pure;’”

and then she softly chanted,—for quotation never came amiss 169 to her, and her head was crammed with choice selections from the poets,—

“‘All armed I ride, whate’er betide,
Until I find the Holy Grail.’”

“Yes, the Sangreal, or the Quest. It does not matter what, for it was only an allegory,” returned Nan, who had plenty of ideas, only she confused them sometimes, and was not as clever in her definitions as Phillis. “It only meant that those grand old knights had some holy purpose and aim in their lives, for which they trained and toiled and fought. Don’t you see?—the meaning is quite clear. We can have our Quest too.”