try us.'

'Oh, if God makes difficulties, they must be quite right, mustn't they,
Theo?'

'Yes, yes!' was the quick response; and Theo, fired afresh, shut out
the fair picture of the tiny speaker whose grave, sweet face looked out
of a tangle of fine-spun, golden hair. Covering her eyes, she applied
herself with renewed vigour to the detested task before her.

Queenie, who had oftentimes witnessed such struggles before, knew
better than to utter another word; the child stood perfectly still.
There was no sound in the room but the ticking of the clock and the
cracking of the seeds with which Miss Pollina, the old grey parrot in
the cage by the window, amused herself unceasingly from morn until
night. Even Miss Pollina seemed to be aware that perfect quietness was
necessary for the present, and she had hushed her usual chatter.

'I've got them! I've got them!' cried out Theo, suddenly throwing up
her pencil in the air, and showing all her white teeth in a joyous
laugh over her triumph. Pollina instantly lifted up her head and
raised her voice also in a succession of deafening screams of
congratulation, while Queenie, always sedate as regards laughter and
chatter, silently performed, with a quaint gravity, a careful, slow
minuet round and round the room.

'I lent three halfpence to Geoff to make up his sixpence for the
hospital-cot collection at the children's service last Sunday. He had
only fourpence halfpenny. I remember it all now. Oh, how stupid I've
been, to be sure!' It was an intense relief to have chased
successfully the truant halfpence. 'Now, Queenie,' went on Theo
gleefully, 'in five minutes I shall be ready for you, and we are going
to have a good time in the boat. Get your hat on, deary.'

'May I bring some of my doll-people, Theo?' Queenie turned as she was
disappearing through the doorway to ask anxiously.

'Oh dear, yes! As many as you can carry!' Theo called back absently,
for she was finishing the column of figures, with a flourish of triumph.

In five minutes more 'Miss Theedory,' as all Northbourne called the
captain's eldest daughter, was rowing across the bay with Queenie
sedately facing her in the Bunk boat. Queenie had seated several
members of her waxen family on either side of her, and taking them an
airing was a serious responsibility for their anxious little parent.
She was in truth over-burdened with family cares, being the owner of no
less than thirteen dolls of various