have felt real doleful if we hadn't thought of
the bonfire."

"Where did you leave the torches?" asked Mr. Burton, springing from his
chair, and lifting his wife to her feet at the same time.

"I--I dunno," said Budge, after a moment of thought.

"Froed 'em in a closet where the rags is, so's not to dyty the nice
floor wif 'em," said Toddie.

Mr. Burton hurried up-stairs and extinguished a smoldering heap of rags,
while his wife, truer to herself than she imagined she was, drew Budge
to her, and said, kindly:

"_Wanting_ to make people happy, and _doing_ it are two very different
things, Budge."

"Yes, I should think they was," said Budge, with an emphasis which
explained much that was left unsaid.

"Little boysh is goosies for tryin' to make big folksh happy at all,"
said Toddie, beginning again to cry.

"Oh, no, they're not, dear," said Mrs. Burton, taking the sorrowful
child into her lap. "But they don't always understand how best to do it,
so they ought to ask big folks before they begin."

"Then there wouldn't be no s'prises," complained Toddie. "Say; izh we
goin' to eat all this supper?"

"I suppose so, if we can," sighed Mrs. Burton.

"I _guesh_ we can--Budgie an' me," said Toddie. "An' _won't_ we be glad
all them wimmens wented away!"

That evening, after the boys had retired, Mrs. Burton seemed a little
uneasy of mind, and at length she said to her husband:

"I feel guilty at never having directed the boys' devotions since they
have been here, and I know no better time than the present in which to
begin."

Mr. Burton's eyes followed his wife reverently as she left the room. The
service she proposed to render the children she had sometimes performed
for himself, with results for which he could not be grateful enough, and
yet it was not with unalloyed anticipation that he softly followed her
up the stair. Mrs. Burton went into the chamber and found the boys
playing battering-ram, each with a pillow in front of him.

"Children," said she, "have you said your prayers?"

"No," said Budge; "somebody's got to be knocked down first. _Then_ we
will."

A sudden tumble by Toddie was the signal for devotional exercises, and
both boys knelt beside the bed.

"Now, darlings," said Mrs. Burton, "you have made some sad mistakes
to-day, and they should teach you that, even when you want most to do
right, you need to be helped by somebody better. Don't you think so?"

"_I_ do," said Budge. "Lots."

"_I_