ed.

"Oh, for a little, little breakfast-table!" Polly would say, as she
flung herself on her mother's couch, and punched the pillows
desperately. "Oh, for a father to say 'Steak, Polly dear?' instead of
my asking, 'Steakorchop?' over and over every morning! Oh, for a
lovely, grown-up, black-haired sister, who would have hundreds of
lovers, and let me stay in the room when they called! Oh, for a tiny
baby brother, fat and dimpled, who would crow, and spill milk on the
tablecloth, and let me sit on the floor and pick up the things he threw
down! But instead of that, a new, big, strange family, different
people every six months, people who don't like each other, and have to
be seated at opposite ends of the table; ladies whose lips tremble with
disappointment if they don't get the second joint of the chicken, and
gentlemen who are sulky if any one else gets the liver. Oh, mamma, I
am sixteen now, and it will soon be time for me to begin taking care of
you; but I warn you, I shall never do it by means of the boarders!"

"Are you so weak and proud, little daughter, as to be ashamed because I
have taken care of you these sixteen years 'by means of the boarders,'
as you say?"

"No, no, mamma! Don't think so badly of me as that. That feeling was
outgrown long ago. Do I not know that it is just as fine and honorable
as anything else in the world, and do I not love and honor you with all
my heart because you do it in so sweet and dignified a way that
everybody respects you for it? But it is n't my vocation. I would
like to do something different, something wider, something lovelier, if
I knew how, and were ever good enough!"

"It is easy to 'dream noble things,' dear, but hard to do them 'all day
long.' My own feeling is, if one reaches the results one is struggling
for, and does one's work as well as it lies in one to do it, that
keeping boarders is as good service as any other bit of the world's
work. One is not always permitted to choose the beautiful or glorious
task. Sometimes all one can do is to make the humble action fine by
doing it 'as it is done in heaven.' Remember, 'they also serve who
only stand and wait.'"

"Yes, mamma," said Polly meekly; "but," stretching out her young arms
hopefully and longingly, "it must be that they also serve who stand and
_dare_, and I 'm going to try that first,--then I 'll wait, if God
wants me to."

"What if God wants you to wait first, little daughter?"

Polly hi