y one and one, But never by two and two,'

the Dentist said.

The others said nothing.

Oswald went on: 'I move that we chuck--I mean dissolve--the Wouldbegoods
Society; its appointed task is done. If it's not well done, that's ITS
fault and not ours.'

Dicky said, 'Hear! hear! I second this prop.'

The unexpected Dentist said, 'I third it. At first I thought it would
help, but afterwards I saw it only made you want to be naughty, just
because you were a Wouldbegood.'

Oswald owns he was surprised. We put it to the vote at once, so as not
to let Denny cool. H. O. and Noel and Alice voted with us, so Daisy and
Dora were what is called a hopeless minority. We tried to cheer their
hopelessness by letting them read the things out of the Golden Deed
book aloud. Noel hid his face in the straw so that we should not see the
faces he made while he made poetry instead of listening, and when the
Wouldbegoods was by vote dissolved for ever he sat up, straws in his
hair, and said--

THE EPITAPH

'The Wouldbegoods are dead and gone
But not the golden deeds they have done
These will remain upon Glory's page
To be an example to every age,
And by this we have got to know
How to be good upon our ow--N.

N is for Noel, that makes the rhyme and the sense both right. O, W, N,
own; do you see?'

We saw it, and said so, and the gentle poet was satisfied. And the
council broke up. Oswald felt that a weight had been lifted from his
expanding chest, and it is curious that he never felt so inclined to be
good and a model youth as he did then. As he went down the ladder out of
the loft he said--

'There's one thing we ought to do, though, before we go home. We ought
to find Albert's uncle's long-lost grandmother for him.'

Alice's heart beat true and steadfast. She said, 'That's just exactly
what Noel and I were saying this morning. Look out, Oswald, you wretch,
you're kicking chaff into my eyes.' She was going down the ladder just
under me.

Oswald's younger sister's thoughtful remark ended in another council.
But not in the straw loft. We decided to have a quite new place, and
disregarded H. O.'s idea of the dairy and Noel's of the cellars. We had
the new council on the secret staircase, and there we settled exactly
what we ought to do. This is the same thing, if you really wish to be
good, as what you are going to do. It was a very interesting
council, and when it was over Osw