“Here’s a home mission all ready for you, and you can be paying your debts beside doing yourself good,” Mrs. Pecq said to her in private, having found plenty to do herself.

Now Jill made one great mistake at the outset—­she forgot that she was the one to be converted to good manners and gentleness, and devoted her efforts to looking after Jack, finding it much easier to cure other people’s faults than her own.  Jack was a most engaging heathen, and needed very little instruction; therefore Jill thought her task would be an easy one.  But three or four weeks of petting and play had rather demoralized both children, so Jill’s Speller, though tucked under the sofa pillow every day, was seldom looked at, and Jack shirked his Latin shamefully.  Both read all the story-books they could get, held daily levees in the Bird Room, and all their spare minutes were spent in teaching Snowdrop, the great Angora cat, to bring the ball when they dropped it in their game.  So Saturday came, and both were rather the worse for so much idleness, since daily duties and studies are the wholesome bread which feeds the mind better than the dyspeptic plum-cake of sensational reading, or the unsubstantial bon-bons of frivolous amusement.

It was a stormy day, so they had few callers, and devoted themselves to arranging the album; for these books were all the rage just then, and boys met to compare, discuss, buy, sell, and “swap” stamps with as much interest as men on ’Change gamble in stocks.  Jack had a nice little collection, and had been saving up pocket-money to buy a book in which to preserve his treasures.  Now, thanks to Jill’s timely suggestion, Frank had given him a fine one, and several friends had contributed a number of rare stamps to grace the large, inviting pages.  Jill wielded the gum-brush and fitted on the little flaps, as her fingers were skilful at this nice work, and Jack put each stamp in its proper place with great rustling of leaves and comparing of marks.  Returning, after a brief absence, Mrs. Minot beheld the countenances of the workers adorned with gay stamps, giving them a very curious appearance.

“My dears! what new play have you got now?  Are you wild Indians? or letters that have gone round the world before finding the right address?” she asked, laughing at the ridiculous sight, for both were as sober as judges and deeply absorbed in some doubtful specimen.

“Oh, we just stuck them there to keep them safe; they get lost if we leave them lying round.  It’s very handy, for I can see in a minute what I want on Jill’s face and she on mine, and put our fingers on the right chap at once,” answered Jack, adding, with an anxious gaze at his friend’s variegated countenance, “Where the dickens is my New Granada?  It’s rare, and I wouldn’t lose it for a dollar.”

“Why, there it is on your own nose.  Don’t you remember you put it there because you said mine was not big enough to hold it?” laughed Jill, tweaking a large orange square off the round nose of her neighbor, causing it to wrinkle up in a droll way, as the gum made the operation slightly painful.