mals and plants, and even little flowers and insects, they
are all useful somehow, though we don't always see how, and so men and
women, who can think and plan and work, ought to do something besides
just enjoying themselves, they ought to leave some mark of their having
been here.'

Godfrey's eyes drank in every word.

'Are you doing something, Aunt Angel?' he asked gravely.

Angel flushed her pretty pink.

'I can't do very much, Godfrey,' she said; 'I should like to make
people a little happier, and then, you know, I want you to do a great
deal, and your Aunt Betty and I are trying to teach you what we can to
help you: that is like Sir Godfrey planting the oak tree, and hoping
that one day it would be beautiful for every one to see.'

Godfrey leaned hard with both elbows on her knee.

'What useful things shall I do?' he asked.

[Illustration: 'What useful things shall I do?' he asked. (missing
from book)]

'I don't know; we shall see by-and-bye. I should try and make every
one very happy now, if I were you, and learn all I could, so that when
you are a man, and can help more people, you may have the power and the
wisdom you want.'

'Only think if you were a great scholar,' put in Betty, 'and wrote a
book--no, a lot of books, and people had them in their libraries, all
bound the same, and with "By Godfrey Wyndham" on the back. Or,' as
Godfrey looked only doubtfully pleased, 'if you were a great statesman
and made speeches, or suppose you were a soldier and beat the French.'

'Would that be useful?' asked Godfrey of Angel.

'Yes, certainly, very useful if the French were coming to conquer
England.'

'Pete is useful, isn't he?' said Godfrey; 'Penny says he's the
usefullest man about the place. Perhaps I might be a useful gardener,
Auntie Betty; I should like that, and I could plant lots of things then
to come up for other people; or couldn't I be a useful miller like
Ware? because people must have bread, and I should like a mill.'

'But why can't you be a statesman or a general?' said Betty, rather
taken aback.

'I would rather be a gardener like Pete,' persisted Godfrey; 'why can't
I? Gardeners are useful.'

'I think,' said Angel, 'because it isn't the state of life into which
it has pleased God to call you, Godfrey dear, like the Catechism you
were learning. We can't choose always just what we should like to be,
we have to do our best just where we are put.'

'It's getting cold,' said Betty,