To Abby belonged the welcome charge of keeping the oratory in order; while Larry always managed to have a few flowers for his vase, even if they were only dandelions or buttercups.  He and his sister differed about the placing of this offering.

“What a queer boy you are!” said Abby to him one day.  “Your vase has a pretty wild rose painted on it, yet you always set it with the plain side out.  Nobody’d know it was anything but a plain white vase.  You ought to put it round this way,” she added, turning it so that the rose would show.

“No, I won’t!” protested Larry, twisting it back again.  “The prettiest side ought to be toward the Blessed Virgin.”

“Oh—­well—­to be sure, in one way!” began Abby.  “But, then, the shrine is all for her, and this is only a statue.  What difference does it make which side of the vase is toward a statue?  And it looks so funny to see the wrong side turned to the front.  Some day we’ll be bringing Annie Conwell and Jack Tyrrell, and some of mother’s friends, up here; and just think how they’ll laugh when they see it.”

Larry flushed, but he answered firmly:  “I don’t care!—­the prettiest side ought to be toward the Blessed Virgin.”

“But it is only a statue!” persisted Abby, testily.

“Of course I know it is only a statue,” replied her brother, raising his voice a trifle; for she was really too provoking.  “I know it just as well as you do.  But I think Our Lady in heaven understands that I put the vase that way because I want to give her the best I have.  And I don’t care whether any one laughs at it or not.  That vase isn’t here so Annie Conwell or Jack Tyrrell or anybody else will think it looks pretty, but only for the Blessed Virgin,—­so there!”

Larry, having expressed himself with such warmth, subsided.  Abby did not venture to turn the vase again.  She was vaguely conscious that she had been a little too anxious to “show off” the oratory, and had thought rather too much of what her friends would say in regard to her arrangement of the altar.

It was about this time that Aunt Kitty and her little daughter Claire came to stay a few days with the Claytons.  Claire was only four years old.  She had light, fluffy curls and brown eyes, and was so dainty and graceful that she seemed to Abby and Larry like a talking doll when she was comparatively quiet, and a merry, roguish fairy when she romped with them.

“How do you happen to have such lovely curls?” asked Abby of the fascinating little creature.

“Oh, mamma puts every curl into a wee nightcap of its own when I go to bed!” answered the child, with a playful shake of the head.

Larry thought this very droll.  “Isn’t she cunning?” he said.  “But what can she mean?”

“Your mother puts your hair into a nightcap!” cried Abby.  “Those are curl papers, I suppose.”

“No, nightcaps,” insisted the little one.  “That’s the right name.”