t your mamma
and me?"

"I love God," and the earnest eyes were fixed on the blue clouds. "Would
you like to be up there, Miss Ruth? Mamma reads about it for me. I
should like to go up there and see it. I should like to see God, too,
but I would come back again, you know. Mamma always cries and hugs me
when I say that; just as if I would stay away from mamma and you. I
guess I wouldn't. But I would see all the beautiful things the Bible
says are there, and then I would draw pretty pictures. Mamma says there
is a house up there for us all, and some day we will go and stay there.
Do you want to go, Miss Ruth?"

"Yes, some day," she replied; but there was no kindling of the eye, no
joy of soul at the thought, for Ruth knew that her earthly love was
stronger and more absorbing than the heavenly. "There, now, we will go
and see about Miss Agnes's dinner," she added, glad to divert his
thoughts.

"Miss Agnes has not come, Martha?" she inquired.

"No, ma'am. I have been watching for her. She will be awful hot, I
think."

"You are Miss Agnes's little girl, and I am Miss Ruth's little boy,
aren't we?" asked the child.

"I am Miss Ruth's, too," said Martha, decidedly.

"Yes, but you love Miss Agnes best."

"I love both just the same--only different; but Miss Agnes was my
teacher."

Ruth gave such a quick look, that the child drew back frightened,
thinking she was angry; but she smiled at her, and Martha's fear left
her. How much a smile will do, and what a very little word or act will
bring that smile. So when Agnes came home "awful hot," as Martha said,
she was met by smiling faces, and waited on by loving hands, and finally
it ended in a "real party," for they all had strawberries and cream, to
keep Miss Agnes company.

"Isn't he a darling," whispered Agnes, glancing toward Philip, who was
intent on his strawberries.

"Yes, he is a remarkable child; his mother must be very fond of him. I
have been planning something to-day, Agnes, for all hands," looking
round at the children, as she spoke.

"What?" asked her sister, brightening.

"I can't tell you until we are alone. But it will bring the roses to
somebody's cheeks, and be very nice for all the somebodies."

"Don't let us do any thing this afternoon, but talk or read," proposed
Agnes; and hearing this, Philip hurried to the school-room for his own
little chair, so that he might lay his head on Ruth's lap and listen.
But _Christus Consolator_ was too profound