"Would you like that?"

"Yes, indeed we should," they answered in a breath.

"But it would take a great deal of money, and instead of being very rich when you grow up, and being able to travel everywhere and have beautiful clothing and jewels, you might have to give up many things of that sort."

"But," said Elizabeth, climbing up into her mother's lap, "isn't doing things for poor children like d.i.c.k, better than that?"

"There's no doubt about it," said their mother, her eyes shining as she kissed the tops of the two round heads now cuddled on her shoulders, in what Beth called her "arm cuddles."

"Well, we don't mind then, do we, sister?"

"No indeed," said sister promptly, kicking her foot out towards the fire. "Dresses are a bother, and always getting torn, and traveling makes you very tired, only the luncheon's nice. But I'd lots rather build a home."

"Let's see," said mother, "if you are as ready to give up something now.

Elizabeth's birthday is next week and Ethelwyn's next month. I had thought we might take a short yachting trip,--all of us, Nan, Aunty Stevens--"

"O, mother," they cried, turning around to hug her.

"Then there is a doll in town that can walk and talk. Beth, deary, you choke me so I can't talk;--and a camera for sister. Would you mind giving up these things to help pay the hospital expenses, or to buy a wheel chair or some comfort for d.i.c.k?"

Down went the heads again, and dead silence reigned except for the crackling of the fire and the clicking of Aunty Stevens' needles.

"May we go away and think it over?" said Ethelwyn soberly.

"Yes."

So they slid down and disappeared to think it out alone, as they always did when obliged to settle questions for themselves. Ethelwyn went outdoors, and crawled into the hammock on the porch. The wind blew mistily from the sea and was heavy with dampness and cold, but the child paid no attention to that; she was so busy thinking. Surely, she thought, there was money enough for d.i.c.k and the others without giving up her camera and the sea trip. She had longed for a camera all summer.

Nan had the use of her mother's and had taken their pictures in all places and positions, and she did so wish for one. But then, there was poor d.i.c.k, 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 d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k would have it as not, momsey, for I've my heart chock full of dolls now, and it will be so good to have d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k needs my camera money, I'll be glad to do it, mother."

But Ethelwyn's voice was hoa.r.s.e, 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 n.o.body will hardly ever let me. I can make the bestest cookies if any one else just makes the dough. So if you don't feel just prezactly well, you can sit in the rocking-chair, and I will do it all."

"Thank you, deary, but I'm feeling pretty well to-day, so we will work together. Let me tie this ap.r.o.n around you."

Then Aunty Stevens brought out the dearest little moulding-board and rolling-pin, and drew out of a corner a small table.

"O isn't everything about this just too cunning? Did these used to be Miss Dorothy's?" said Ethelwyn in a rapture, Mrs. Stevens nodded.

"Here's your dough, dear. Now roll it out to fit this little plate."

This took time, for it persisted in rolling out long and slim, and not at all the shape of the plate, but at last it was fitted in.

"Now what comes?" said the little cook, lifting a red and floury face.