ery stitch, she told me. Oh, Susan, I
sometimes feel that I haven't any right to be so happy. I seem to have
everything and other women to have nothing."

For the first time Susan smiled, but it was a smile of understanding.
"Perhaps they have more than you think, darling."

"But there's Miss Willy--what has she ever got out of life?"

"Well, I really believe she gets a kind of happiness out of saving up
the money to pay for her tombstone. It's a funny thing, but the people
who ought to be unhappy, somehow never are. It doesn't seem to be a
matter of what you have, but of the way you are born. Now, according to
us, Miss Willy ought to be miserable, but the truth is that she isn't a
bit so. Mother saw her once skipping for pure joy in the spring."

"But people who haven't things can't be as grateful to God as those who
have. I feel that I'd like to spend every minute of my life on my knees
thanking Him. I don't see how I can ever have a disappointed or a
selfish thought again. I wonder if you can understand, you precious
Susan, but I want to open my arms and take the whole world into them."

"Jinny," said Susan suddenly, "don't spoil Oliver."

"I couldn't--not if I tried every minute."

"I don't know, dear. He is very lovable, he has fine generous traits, he
has the making of a big man in him--but his character isn't formed yet,
you must remember. So much of him is imagination that he will take
longer than most men to grow up to his stature."

"Oh, Susan!" exclaimed Virginia, and turned away.

"Perhaps I oughtn't to have said it, Jinny--but, no, I ought to tell you
just what I think, and I don't regret it."

"Mother said the same thing to me," responded Virginia, looking as if
she were on the point of tears; "but that is just because neither of you
know him as I do."

"He is a Treadwell and so am I, and the chief characteristic of every
Treadwell is that he is going to get the thing he wants most. It doesn't
make any difference whether it is money or love or fame, the thing he
wants most he will get sooner or later. So all I mean is that you
needn't spoil Oliver by giving him the universe before he wants it."

"I can't give him the universe. I can only give him myself."

Stooping over, Susan kissed her.

"Happy, happy little Jinny!"

"There are only two things that trouble me, dear--one is going away from
mother and father, and the other is that you are not so happy as I am."

"Some day I may get the th