Jerry squirmed uncomfortably.  He adored his father.  Through the unshaded study window they could see Mr. Meredith at his desk.  He did not seem to be either reading or writing.  His head was in his hands and there was something in his whole attitude that spoke of weariness and dejection.  The children suddenly felt it.

“I dare say somebody’s been worrying him about us to-day,” said Faith.  “I wish we could get along without making people talk.  Oh—­Jem Blythe!  How you scared me!”

Jem Blythe had slipped into the graveyard and sat down beside the girls.  He had been prowling about Rainbow Valley and had succeeded in finding the first little star-white cluster of arbutus for his mother.  The manse children were rather silent after his coming.  Jem was beginning to grow away from them somewhat this spring.  He was studying for the entrance examination of Queen’s Academy and stayed after school with the older pupils for extra lessons.  Also, his evenings were so full of work that he seldom joined the others in Rainbow Valley now.  He seemed to be drifting away into grown-up land.

“What is the matter with you all to-night?” he asked.  “There’s no fun in you.”

“Not much,” agreed Faith dolefully.  “There wouldn’t be much fun in you either if you knew you were disgracing your father and making people talk about you.”

“Who’s been talking about you now?”

“Everybody—­so Mary Vance says.”  And Faith poured out her troubles to sympathetic Jem.  “You see,” she concluded dolefully, “we’ve nobody to bring us up.  And so we get into scrapes and people think we’re bad.”

“Why don’t you bring yourselves up?” suggested Jem.  “I’ll tell you what to do.  Form a Good-Conduct Club and punish yourselves every time you do anything that’s not right.”

“That’s a good idea,” said Faith, struck by it.  “But,” she added doubtfully, “things that don’t seem a bit of harm to us seem simply dreadful to other people.  How can we tell?  We can’t be bothering father all the time—­and he has to be away a lot, anyhow.”

“You could mostly tell if you stopped to think a thing over before doing it and ask yourselves what the congregation would say about it,” said Jem.  “The trouble is you just rush into things and don’t think them over at all.  Mother says you’re all too impulsive, just as she used to be.  The Good-Conduct Club would help you to think, if you were fair and honest about punishing yourselves when you broke the rules.  You’d have to punish in some way that really hurt, or it wouldn’t do any good.”

“Whip each other?”

“Not exactly.  You’d have to think up different ways of punishment to suit the person.  You wouldn’t punish each other—­you’d punish yourselves.  I read all about such a club in a story-book.  You try it and see how it works.”

“Let’s,” said Faith; and when Jem was gone they agreed they would.  “If things aren’t right we’ve just got to make them right,” said Faith, resolutely.