d young fellows making all sorts of sacrifices, and
enduring real hardships, that they might realize their dreams. Splendid
fellows, some of them, working like heros, poor and friendless, but so
full of courage, patience, and ambition that I was ashamed of myself,
and longed to give them a right good lift. Those are people whom it's
a satisfaction to help, for if they've got genius, it's an honor to be
allowed to serve them, and not let it be lost or delayed for want of
fuel to keep the pot boiling. If they haven't, it's a pleasure to
comfort the poor souls, and keep them from despair when they find it
out."

"Yes, indeed, and there's another class who can't ask, and who suffer
in silence. I know something of it, for I belonged to it before you
made a princess of me, as the king does the beggarmaid in the old
story. Ambitious girls have a hard time, Laurie, and often have to see
youth, health, and precious opportunities go by, just for want of a
little help at the right minute. People have been very kind to me, and
whenever I see girls struggling along, as we used to do, I want to put
out my hand and help them, as I was helped."

"And so you shall, like an angel as you are!" cried Laurie, resolving,
with a glow of philanthropic zeal, to found and endow an institution
for the express benefit of young women with artistic tendencies. "Rich
people have no right to sit down and enjoy themselves, or let their
money accumulate for others to waste. It's not half so sensible to
leave legacies when one dies as it is to use the money wisely while
alive, and enjoy making one's fellow creatures happy with it. We'll
have a good time ourselves, and add an extra relish to our own pleasure
by giving other people a generous taste. Will you be a little Dorcas,
going about emptying a big basket of comforts, and filling it up with
good deeds?"

"With all my heart, if you will be a brave St. Martin, stopping as you
ride gallantly through the world to share your cloak with the beggar."

"It's a bargain, and we shall get the best of it!"

So the young pair shook hands upon it, and then paced happily on again,
feeling that their pleasant home was more homelike because they hoped
to brighten other homes, believing that their own feet would walk more
uprightly along the flowery path before them, if they smoothed rough
ways for other feet, and feeling that their hearts were more closely
knit together by a love which could tenderly