ok and smile.

"Not at all; he isn't fit to be trusted with one," returned Lulu,
promptly. "Papa, what do you think would be a suitable present for him?"

"A book with bright pictures and short stories told very simply in words
of one or two syllables. Dick is going to school and learning to read,
and I think such a gift would be both enjoyable and useful to him."

"Yes; that'll be just the right thing!" exclaimed Lulu. "Papa, you
always do know best about everything."

"I hope you'll stick to that idea, Lu," laughed Max. "You seem to have
only just found it out; but Grace and I have known it this long while;
haven't we, Gracie?"

"Yes, indeed!" returned the little sister.

"And so have I," said Lulu, hanging her head and blushing, "only
sometimes I've forgotten it for a while. But I hope I won't any more,
dear papa," she added softly, with a penitent, beseeching look up into
his face.

"I hope not, my darling," he responded in tender tones, caressing her
hair and cheek with his hand, "and the past shall not be laid up against
you."

"Papa, will you take us to the city, as you did last year, and let us
choose, ourselves, the things we are going to give?" asked Max.

"I intend to do so," his father said. "Judging from the length of your
lists, I think we will have to take several trips to accomplish it all.
So we will make a beginning before long, when the weather has become
settled; perhaps the first pleasant day of next week, if you have all
been good and industrious about your lessons."

"Have we earned our quarters to-day, papa?" asked Grace.

"I think you are in a fair way to do so," he answered smiling, "but you
still have a chance to lose them between this and your bedtime."

"It's just before we get into bed you'll give them to us, papa?" Lulu
said inquiringly.

"I shall tell you at that time whether you have earned them, but I may
sometimes only set the amount down to your credit and pay you the money
in a lump at the end of the week."

"Yes, sir; we'll like that way just as well," they returned in chorus.

Violet had come in and taken possession of an easy chair on the farther
side of the glowing grate.

Looking smilingly at the little group opposite, "I have a thought," she
said lightly; "who can guess it?"

"It's something nice about papa; how handsome he is, and how good and
kind," ventured Lulu.

"A very close guess, Lu," laughed Violet; "for my thought was that the
Woodburn children