Uncle Roger was, as we had been informed, quite jolly and fond of teasing.  We liked him; but we had an uncomfortable feeling that the meaning of his remarks was not always that which met the ear.  Sometimes we believed Uncle Roger was making fun of us, and the deadly seriousness of youth in us resented that.

The Uncle Alec we gave our warmest love.  We felt that we always had a friend at court in Uncle Alec, no matter what we did or left undone.  And we never had to turn his speeches inside out to discover their meaning.

The social life of juvenile Carlisle centred in the day and Sunday Schools.  We were especially interested in our Sunday School, for we were fortunate enough to be assigned to a teacher who made our lessons so interesting that we no longer regarded Sunday School attendance as a disagreeable weekly duty; but instead looked forward to it with pleasure, and tried to carry out our teacher’s gentle precepts—­at least on Mondays and Tuesdays.  I am afraid the remembrance grew a little dim the rest of the week.

She was also deeply interested in missions; and one talk on this subject inspired the Story Girl to do a little home missionary work on her own account.  The only thing she could think of, along this line, was to persuade Peter to go to church.

Felicity did not approve of the design, and said so plainly.

“He won’t know how to behave, for he’s never been inside a church door in his life,” she warned the Story Girl.  “He’ll likely do something awful, and then you’ll feel ashamed and wish you’d never asked him to go, and we’ll all be disgraced.  It’s all right to have our mite boxes for the heathen, and send missionaries to them.  They’re far away and we don’t have to associate with them.  But I don’t want to have to sit in a pew with a hired boy.”

But the Story Girl undauntedly continued to coax the reluctant Peter.  It was not an easy matter.  Peter did not come of a churchgoing stock; and besides, he alleged, he had not yet made up his mind whether to be a Presbyterian or a Methodist.

“It isn’t a bit of difference which you are,” pleaded the Story Girl.  “They both go to heaven.”

“But one way must be easier or better than the other, or else they’d all be one kind,” argued Peter.  “I want to find the easiest way.  And I’ve got a hankering after the Methodists.  My Aunt Jane was a Methodist.”

“Isn’t she one still?” asked Felicity pertly.

“Well, I don’t know exactly.  She’s dead,” said Peter rebukingly.  “Do people go on being just the same after they’re dead?”

“No, of course not.  They’re angels then—­not Methodists or anything, but just angels.  That is, if they go to heaven.”

“S’posen they went to the other place?”

But Felicity’s theology broke down at this point.  She turned her back on Peter and walked disdainfully away.

The Story Girl returned to the main point with a new argument.