imself, because being
good is not the sort of thing he thinks it is proper to talk about,
especially before strangers. But the girls and Denny seemed to like
it, so Oswald did not say exactly what he thought, especially as it was
Daisy's idea. This was true politeness.

'I think it would be nice,' Noel said, 'if we made it a sort of play.
Let's do the Pilgrim's Progress.'

We talked about that for some time, but it did not come to anything,
because we all wanted to be Mr Greatheart, except H. O., who wanted to
be the lions, and you could not have lions in a Society for Goodness.

Dicky said he did not wish to play if it meant reading books about
children who die; he really felt just as Oswald did about it, he told me
afterwards. But the girls were looking as if they were in Sunday school,
and we did not wish to be unkind.

At last Oswald said, 'Well, let's draw up the rules of the society, and
choose the president and settle the name.'

Dora said Oswald should be president, and he modestly consented. She was
secretary, and Denny treasurer if we ever had any money.

Making the rules took us all the afternoon. They were these:

RULES

1. Every member is to be as good as possible.

2. There is to be no more jaw than necessary about being good.
(Oswald and Dicky put that rule in.)

3. No day must pass without our doing some kind action to a suffering
fellow-creature.

4. We are to meet every day, or as often as we like.

5. We are to do good to people we don't like as often as we can.

6. No one is to leave the Society without the consent of all the
rest of us.

7. The Society is to be kept a profound secret from all the world
except us.

8. The name of our Society is--

And when we got as far as that we all began to talk at once. Dora wanted
it called the Society for Humane Improvement; Denny said the Society for
Reformed Outcast Children; but Dicky said, No, we really were not so bad
as all that.

Then H. O. said, 'Call it the Good Society.'

'Or the Society for Being Good In,' said Daisy.

'Or the Society of Goods,' said Noel.

'That's priggish,' said Oswald; 'besides, we don't know whether we shall
be so very.'

'You see,' Alice explained, 'we only said if we COULD we would be good.'

'Well, then,' Dicky said, getting up and beginning to dust the chopped
hay off himself, 'call it the Society of the Wouldbegoods and have done
with it.'

Oswald thinks Dicky was getting sick