"Ugh," said Faith, sitting up in bed with a shiver. "It's raining. I do hate a rainy Sunday. Sunday is dull enough even when it's fine."  
"We oughtn't to find Sunday dull," said Una sleepily, trying to pull her wits together with an uneasy conviction that they had overslept.
 
"But we DO, you know," said Faith . "Mary Vance says most Sundays are so dull she could hang herself."
 
"We ought to like Sunday better than Mary Vance," said Una . "We're the minister's children."
 
"I wish we were a blacksmith's children," protested Faith angrily, hunting for her stockings. "THEN people wouldn't expect us to be better than other children. JUST look at the holes in my heels. Mary darned them all up before she went away, but they're as bad as ever now. Una, get up. I can't get the breakfast alone. Oh, dear. I wish father and Jerry were home. You wouldn't think we'd miss father much—we don't see much of him when he is home. And yet EVERYTHING seems gone. I must run in and see how Aunt Martha is."
 
"Is she any better?" asked Una, when Faith returned.
 
"No, she isn't. She's with the still. Maybe we ought to tell Dr. Blythe. But she says not—she never had a doctor in her life and she isn't going to begin now. She says doctors just live by poisoning people. Do you suppose they do?"
 
"No, of course not," said Una indignantly. "I'm sure Dr. Blythe wouldn't poison anybody."
 
"Well, we'll have to rub Aunt Martha's back again after breakfast. We'd better not make the as hot as we did yesterday."
 
Faith over the remembrance. They had nearly scalded the skin off poor Aunt Martha's back. Una sighed. Mary Vance would have known just what the precise temperature of flannels for a misery back should be. Mary knew everything. They knew nothing. And how could they learn, save by bitter experience for which, in this instance, unfortunate Aunt Martha had paid?
 
The preceding Monday Mr. Meredith had left for Nova Scotia to spend his short vacation, taking Jerry with him. On Wednesday Aunt Martha was suddenly seized with a and mysterious which she always called "the misery," and which was tolerably certain to attack her at the most times. She could not rise from her bed, any movement causing agony. A doctor she flatly refused to have. Faith and Una cooked the meals and waited on her. The less said about the meals the better—yet they were not much worse than Aunt Martha's had been. There were many women in the village who would have been glad to come and help, but Aunt Martha refused to let her be known.
 
"You must worry on till I git around," she . "Thank goodness, John isn't here. There's a plenty o' cold biled meat and bread and you kin try your hand at making porridge."
 
The girls had tried their hand, but so far without much success. The first day it had been too thin. The next day so thick that you could cut it in slices. And both days it had been burned.
 
"I hate porridge," said Faith viciously. "When I have a house of my own I'm NEVER going to have a single bit of porridge in it."
 
"What'll your children do then?" asked Una. "Children have to have porridge or they won't grow. Everybody says so."
 
"They'll have to get along without it or stay runts," retorted
Faith stubbornly. "Here, Una, you stir it while I set the table.
If I leave it for a minute the stuff will burn. It's half
past nine. We'll be late for Sunday School."
"I haven't seen anyone going past yet," said Una. "There won't likely be many out. Just see how it's pouring. And when there's no preaching the folks won't come from a distance to bring the children."
 
"Go and call Carl," said Faith.
 
Carl, it appeared, had a sore throat, induced by getting wet in the Rainbow Valley the previous evening while pursuing dragon-flies. He had come home with dripping stockings and boots and had sat out the evening in them. He could not eat any breakfast and Faith made him go back to bed again. She and Una left the table as it was and went to Sunday School. There was no one in the school room when they got there and no one came. They waited until eleven and then went home.
 
"There doesn't seem to be anybody at the Methodist Sunday School either," said Una.
 
"I'm GLAD," said Faith. "I'd hate to think the Methodists were better at going to Sunday School on rainy Sundays than the Presbyterians. But there's no preaching in their Church to-day, either, so likely their Sunday School is in the afternoon."
 
Una washed the dishes, doing them quite nicely, for so much had she learned from Mary Vance. Faith swept the floor after a fashion and peeled the potatoes for dinner, cutting her finger in the process.
 
"I wish we had something for dinner besides ditto," sighed Una. "I'm so tired of it. The Blythe children don't know what ditto is. And we NEVER have any pudding. Nan says Susan would faint if they had no pudding on Sundays. Why aren't we like other people, Faith?"
 
"I don't want to be like other people," laughed Faith, tying up her bleeding finger. "I like being myself. It's more interesting. Jessie Drew is as good a as her mother, but would you want to be as stupid as she is?"
 
"But our house isn't right. Mary Vance says so. She says people talk about it being so untidy."
 
Faith had an inspiration.
 
"We'll clean it all up," she cried. "We'll go right to work to-morrow. It's a real good chance when Aunt Martha is laid up and can't with us. We'll have it all lovely and clean when father comes home, just like it was when Mary went away. ANY ONE can sweep and dust and wash windows. People won't be able to talk about us any more. Jem Blythe says it's only old cats that talk, but their talk hurts just as much as anybody's."
 
"I hope it will be fine to-morrow," said Una, fired with enthusiasm. "Oh, Faith, it will be splendid to be all cleaned up and like other people."
 
"I hope Aunt Martha's misery will last over to-morrow," said
Faith. "If it doesn't we won't get a single thing done."
Faith's wish was f............