What Two Children Did | Page 8

pictures in all places and positions, and she did so wish for one. But then, there was poor Dick, how uncomfortable he had looked.
Elizabeth, meantime, went to the bedside of her beloved doll family. They were lying serene and placid, exactly as she had placed and tucked them in at bedtime, with her own motherly hand, and the memory of Dick lying racked with pain on the comfortless bed where she had first seen him, almost decided her at once. But a doll that could walk and talk, though, would be lovely.
"But then, darlings," she said, after a little, "you might think I would love her better than you, and you are such dears, you don't deserve that."
So Beth kissed them all with fervor, her mind quite made up.
While they were away, Aunty Stevens said, "Isn't that a pretty hard test?"
The children's mother shook her head thoughtfully at the dancing fire.
"I hope not," she said. "I don't wish them to do things now that they will repent of afterwards. But it seems to me that if they are trained now to be unselfish, they will always be so. Don't you think, dear Mrs. Stevens, that the whole trouble with the world is its selfishness?"
"No doubt at all about it," said the older woman, nodding emphatically over her flying needles.
"Then if the world is to be made better, and rid of this, which lies at the bottom of all the crime, sin and unhappiness, the younger ones of us will have to be taught to sacrifice, at least some luxuries, to help give less fortunate ones the necessities of life," said Mrs. Rayburn, getting interested, and talking fast and earnestly.
"How I hate the expression 'Look out for number one,' It's such teaching as this, that makes human beings so forgetful of others," she went on after a little pause, "and the modern socialist only seems to be trying to exchange one set of selfish, grasping rules for another of the same sort. So the world will go on, until the laws are again based on the teaching of our Lord, and Christian socialism will prevail."
"Yes, you are quite right, but what are you among so many?" asked Aunty Stevens, smiling across at her friend.
Mrs. Rayburn's cheeks flushed. "Yes, I know," she said. "I suppose it looks as though I alone were trying to reform the world; but I am not. I am only one little atom trying to teach still smaller atoms that they must do their share."
"Was it not in 'Bleak House' that that exceedingly unpleasant personage used to give away her children's pocket money? And the black looks she received from them when she was not looking, were something dreadful."
"Well," said Mrs. Rayburn, laughing, "I hope you don't think the cases are parallel."
"No indeed, I don't. I was trying to say, I think you are right because you go at it in the right way, and let them choose. Then, because they love and have perfect confidence in you, they will be pretty likely to choose the right way."
"People so often say, 'Let children have a good time,' but interpreted, from their point of view, a good time, means a selfish time. That is selfish enjoyment, but it might be good occasionally to put to the test the truth that it is more blessed to give than to receive."
Elizabeth now came in with her baby doll in her arms. She soberly climbed up again into the blessed fold of her mother's arms.
"I'd just as lief Dick would have it as not, momsey, for I've my heart chock full of dolls now, and it will be so good to have Dick and others well and comfyble."
Ethelwyn came a moment later.
"It's all right, mother," she said, also climbing up to her place. "I can make pictures with a pencil more easily than I can bear to think that Dick needs my camera money, I'll be glad to do it, mother."
But Ethelwyn's voice was hoarse, and the next morning she was not well enough to go to town.

CHAPTER VII The Secret
Such fun to have a secret! To tell one too is fun. But then there is no secret That's known to more than one.
Ethelwyn had intended to have a most unhappy day, so after her mother and Beth went, she lay face down in the hammock with a very damp ball of a handkerchief squeezed up tightly against her eyes. But by and by she heard Aunty Stevens calling her. "Here I am," she answered, at once sitting up.
"Do you feel well enough to help me make some apple pies?" Ethelwyn rolled out of the hammock, and ran into the kitchen in a trice.
"O if you only knew how I love to cook, Aunty Stevens," she cried. "And nobody will hardly ever