The Greater Mischief a Novel

only about two miles from the gray cottage, but Audrey's walks with her mother never extended far. Now she sat in church, and reflected sadly that she was a very miserable sinner. For through a window she could see the pink-clad boughs of a may-tree waving in the breeze. On one of the branches a thrush was perched, and he was singing and singing?right into the church his sweet, impudent voice penetrated. Audrey tried not to hear; she tried not to see? What a miserable sinner she was! The proper places for one's eyes in church were book, preacher, or folded hands. Ears should hear only the preacher's voice. Why was she so wicked, when her mother was so good ? Oh, dear, how funny she did feel inside! Why couldn't her hands lie still in her lap ? Why did her feet go mad if she didn't move them?just ever so little ? . . . The thrush was singing about his nest, which was built in among all the pink may, and none of the baby thrushes ever went to church. . . . "My friends,in those days God appeared to His people"?oh, how wicked she was! She wished the thrush would go away. When her mother was a little girl she never listened to birds singing when she was in church; she never tried to smell the may. . . . "Please God, make me good.". . . Even before she was in church she had been naughty: walking beside her mother she had wanted to run and skip, and you mustn't run and skip on Sunday. . . . "Oh, please God Almighty, don't let me smell the may." "Audrey, don't fidge... --This text refers to the Paperback edition.