do anything at all without we have to be punished for
it? We thought this was truly a good work, and we thought we were doing
our duty!"

Like a little whirlwind, Marjorie flew across the room, and threw
herself, sobbing, into her father's arms.

"My dear child," he said, kissing her hot little brow, "wait a moment
till I explain. We want to talk over this matter, and get each other's
ideas about it."

"But you're going to say it was wrong,--I know you are! And I was trying
so hard _not_ to do naughty things. Oh, Father, how can I tell what I
can do, and what I can't?"

"There, there, Midget, now stop crying. You're not going to be punished;
you don't deserve to be. What you did was not wrong in itself,--at least
it would not have been for older people. But you children are ignorant
of the ways of the grown-up world, and so you ought not to have taken
the responsibility of dictating to or advising grown people. That was
the wrong part."

"But we meant it for their good, sir, more than for our own," said King,
by way of justification.

"That's just it, Kingdon, my boy. You're too young yet to know what _is_
for the good of grown men and women who are old enough to be your
parents and grandparents. You wouldn't think of dictating to your mother
or myself 'for our good,' would you? And all grown people ought to be
equally free from your unasked advice."

"But, Father," insisted King, "if you kept this place looking like a
rubbish-heap, wouldn't I have a right to ask you not to?"

"You'd have only the right of our relationship. A child has many
privileges with his parents that he hasn't with any one else in the
world. But to come right down to the facts: the letters that you wrote
were ill-advised, arrogant, and impertinent."

Kitty looked frankly bewildered at these big Words, Marjorie buried her
face on her father's shoulder in a renewed burst of tears, while Kingdon
flushed a deep red all over his honest, boyish face.

"I'm sorry, Father," he said; "we didn't mean them to be, and we didn't
think they were. We thought they were straightforward and
business-like."

"That shows your ignorance, my son. Until you have been in business, you
cannot really know what grown men and women consider business-like. I
can tell you John Kellogg and Tom Bolton didn't consider them
masterpieces of business-like literature."

"How do you know?" said Marjorie, lifting her wet face from its
hiding-place.

"I saw them, dear