Christmas with Grandma Elsie | Page 9

Lulu had to tell, as the latter had anticipated.
"Oh won't it be just lovely to have so much money to do good with!" she exclaimed when all had been told. "Haven't we got the very best and dearest father in the world? I don't believe, Lu, there's another one half so dear and kind and nice. We ought to be ever such good children!"
"Yes, but I'm not," sighed Lulu. "O Gracie, I'd give anything to be as good as you are!"
"Now don't talk so, Lu; you make me feel like a hypocrite; because I'm not good," said Grace.
"You are; at any rate you're a great deal better than I am," asserted Lulu with warmth. "You never disobey papa, or get into a passion; and I don't think you love finery as I do. Gracie, I want that ring yet; oh I should like to have it ever so much! and I oughtn't to want it; it's very selfish, because to buy it would use up money that ought to go to send missionaries to the heathen, or do good to some poor miserable creature; and it's wrong for me to want it, because papa says it wouldn't be good for me; and if I were as good as I ought to be I'd never want anything he doesn't think best for me to have. But, oh dear, how can I help it when I'm so fond of pretty things!"
"Lu," said Grace, softly, "I do believe that if you ask the Lord Jesus to help you to quit wanting it, he will. But if you didn't care for it, it wouldn't be denying yourself to do without it for the sake of the heathen."
"Maybe so; but I don't believe papa would let me have it even if I wouldn't consent to give it up, and begged him ever so hard for it."
"No, I s'pose not, for he loves us too well to give us anything that he thinks will make it harder for us to love and serve God and go to heaven when we die."
"Yes, and of course that's the best way for people to love their children. It's time for me to get up now, but you'd better lie still a little longer."
With that Lulu slipped from the bed, ran back to her room, and kneeling down there, gave thanks for the sleep of the past night, for health and strength, a good home, her dear, kind father to take care of, and provide for her, and love her, and all her many, many comforts and blessings; and confessing her sins, she asked to be forgiven for Jesus' sake, and to have strength given her to do all her duty that day,--to be patient, obedient, industrious, kind and helpful to others and willing to deny herself, especially in the matter of the ring she had been wishing for so ardently.
When the captain came into the apartments of his little daughters for a few minutes chat before breakfast, as was his custom, he found them both neatly dressed and looking bright and happy.
"How are you, my darlings?" he asked, kissing them in turn, then seating himself and drawing them into his arms.
"I think we're both very well, papa," answered Lulu.
"Yes, indeed!" said Grace, "and I'm ever so glad of what Lu's been telling me 'bout the money you are going to give us if we're good, and the choosing 'bout where the other shall go that you're going to give to help send missionaries to the heathen. Thank you for both, dear papa; but don't you think we ought to be good without being paid for it?"
"Yes, I certainly do, my dear little girl; but at the same time I want my children to have the luxury of being able to give something which they have, in some sense, earned for that purpose. I want you to learn in your own experience the truth of the words of the Lord Jesus, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'
"Now 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