ting between
hope and fear, and when at last the suspense was over and he looked upon
the tiny features of a son, his joy knew no bounds.

He hurried out to break the news to the two little sisters whom he
imagined would be as pleased as he was. He found them in the yard,
Vivian swinging with her doll and Jean digging a hole in a pile of sand.
When the important announcement was made, the black-haired Vivian
clapped her hands for joy, but the other little girl kept right on
digging, just as if she had not heard. When she had passed the critical
point in the process of excavating she paused and looked up.

The expression in her father's face was something new to her, and she
studied him in silence a moment, then said, solemnly:

"Are boys any better than girls, father?"

"Better? Why no, they are no better. They are boys, that is all."

"Well, then!" and the tone of her voice, no less than the words,
conveyed the meaning that the matter was settled, and she returned to
her digging as if nothing had happened. But she did not forget the
incident, and when, shortly after, the tiny baby boy in the cold arms of
his mother had been put to rest beneath a mound, and the light had gone
out of the father's face and the elasticity out of his step, little Jean
pondered and her heart went out strangely to her father in his bitter
trouble. She followed him softly about and studied him.

One evening, some time after the little son had come and gone, Jean
appeared before her father in the library to make an important
announcement. "I've been thinking the matter over, father," she said,
"and I've made up my mind I will be your boy. You want a boy, and you
know yourself you'll never be able to make one of Vivian, with her wee
little mouth and her long braids. Now my hair is just right and I can
throw a stone exactly over the middle of the barn and kick a ball
farther than any boy on the block. I shall kick more hereafter, for
don't you think a boy's legs ought to be cultivated?"

Judge Thorn smiled and assured her that she was correct in her idea of
muscular development.

"Are boys as good as girls, father?"

"Boys as good as girls? Why, certainly."

"Well, you said once that girls were as good as boys, and if boys are as
good as girls they're as good as each other, aren't they?"

Judge Thorn could not keep back the laugh this time.

"I believe that is the logical conclusion," he said.

"Then tell me truly, father, if I'm g