while you are so young, not capable of earning much in any other way, your proper business the task of gaining knowledge and skill to fit you for future usefulness, I see no more fitting way than this for you to be furnished with money for religious and benevolent purposes."
"Papa," asked Lulu, "do you think it is never right for anybody to have diamonds or handsome jewelry of any kind?"
"I do not think it my business to judge in such matters for everybody," he answered, caressing her and smiling down tenderly into her eyes; "but I must judge for myself—applying the rules the Bible gives me—and to a great extent for my children also while they are so young."
"Not for Mamma Vi?" Lulu asked, with some little hesitation.
"No; she is my wife, not my child, and old enough to judge for herself."
"She has a great deal of beautiful jewelry," remarked Lulu with an involuntary sigh, "and Grandma Elsie has still more. Rosie asked her once to show it to us children, and she did. Oh she has just the loveliest rings and whole sets of jewelry—pins and ear-rings to match—and chains and bracelets! I'm sure they must be worth a great deal of money; Rosie said they were, and I'm sure Grandma Elsie is a real true Christian—a very, very good one and that Mamma Vi is too."
"And I agree with you in that," was the emphatic reply. "But my daughter and I have nothing to do with deciding their duty for them in regard to this or other things. God does not require that of us; indeed forbids it; 'Judge not, that ye be not judged,' Jesus said.
"But I see plainly that my duty is as I explained it to you last evening, and I thought then you were convinced that it would be selfish and wrong for you and me to spend a large sum for useless ornament that might otherwise be used for the good of our fellow creatures, and the advancement of Christ's kingdom."
"Yes, papa, I was, and I'm trying, and asking God to help me, not to want the ring I asked you for; but I'm afraid it'll take me quite a while to quite stop wishing for it," she sighed.
"You will conquer at length, if you keep on trying and asking for help," he said, giving her a tender kiss.
"A good plan will be to fill your thoughts with other things," he went on; "your lessons while in the school-room, after that you may find it pleasant to begin planning for Christmas gifts to be made or bought for those you love, and others whom you would like to help. I shall give each of you—including Max—as much extra spending money as I did last year."
"Beside all that for benevolence, papa?" they asked in surprise and delight.
"Yes; what I provide you with for benevolence, is something aside from your spending money, which you are at liberty to do with as you please, within certain bounds," he said rising and taking a hand of each as the breakfast bell sounded out its summons to the morning meal.
Misconduct and poor recitations were alike very rare in the school-room at Woodburn; neither found a place there to-day, so that the captain had only commendations to bestow, and they were heartily and gladly given.
The ice and snow had entirely disappeared, and the roads were muddy; too muddy, it was thought, to make travel over them particularly agreeable; but the children obtained sufficient exercise in romping over the wide porches and trotting round the grounds on their ponies.
But in spite of the bad condition of the roads, the Ion carriage drove over early in the afternoon, and Grandma Elsie, Mrs. Elsie Leland—her namesake daughter—Rosie and Evelyn alighted from it. Everybody was delighted to see them, and to hear that they would stay to tea.
"O girls," said Lulu, "come up to my room and take off your things. I've something to tell you," and she looked so gay and happy that they felt quite sure it was something that pleased her greatly.
"I think I can guess what it is," laughed Rosie; "your father has promised you the diamond ring you want so badly."
"No, it isn't that; you may have another guess; but I don't believe you could hit the right thing if you should guess fifty or a hundred times."
"Then I sha'n't try. I give it up. Don't you, Eva?"
"Yes, please tell us, Lu," said Evelyn.
Then Lulu, talking fast and eagerly, repeated to them what she had told to Grace, in bed that morning.
"Oh how nice!" Evelyn exclaimed. "How I should like to be in your place,
Lu!"
"I think it's nice, too," Rosie said, "and I'd like mamma or grandpa to do the same by me. But I'd want my pearls too," she added, laughing. "Mamma's rich enough to give me them, and do all she need do for missions and the poor beside."
"But so very, very much is needed," remarked Evelyn.
"I've read in some of the religious papers, that if every church member would give but a small sum yearly, there would be enough," said Rosie; "and mamma gives hundreds and thousands of dollars; and grandpa gives a great deal too. So I don't see that I ought to do without the set of pearls I've set my heart on. It isn't mamma's place to do other people's duty for them—in the way of giving, any more than in other things."
Grandma Elsie and her older daughters were in Violet's boudoir.
"I had letters this morning, from your brothers Harold and Herbert, Vi, and have brought them with me to read to you," the mother said, taking the missives from her pocket.
"Thank you, mamma; I am always glad to hear what they write; their letters are never dull or uninteresting," Violet replied, her sister Elsie adding, "They are always worth hearing, Lester and I think. What dear boys they are!"
"And quite as highly appreciated by my husband as by yours, Elsie,"
Violet said with a bright, happy look.
"They are a great blessing and comfort to their mother," Grandma Elsie remarked, "as indeed all my children are—their letters always a source of pleasure, but these even more so than most; for they show that my college boys are greatly stirred up on the subject of missions at home and abroad; full of renewed zeal for the advancement of the Master's cause and kingdom."
She then read the letters which gave abundant evidence of the correctness of her estimate of the state of her sons' minds.
They were working as teachers in a mission Sunday school, as Bible readers and tract distributors among the poor and degraded of the city where they were sojourning; doing good to bodies as well as souls—their mother supplying them with means for that purpose in addition to what she allowed them for pocket-money;—also exerting an influence for good among their fellow students.
They told of interesting meetings held for prayer and conference upon the things concerning the kingdom; of renewed and higher consecration on the part of many who were already numbered among the Master's followers, and the conversion of others who had hitherto cared for none of these things.
The reading of the letters was followed by an earnest talk between the mother and her daughters, in which Violet told of her husband's plans for giving through his children, in addition to what he would give in other ways.
"What excellent ideas?" Grandma Elsie exclaimed, her eyes shining with pleasure. "I shall adopt both with my younger two children, one with all of you."
"Which is that last, mamma?" asked Violet sportively.
"The
