open and candid those eyes and that brow!" Johnnie was a very truthful little fellow, and though he had faults, he would have scorned to tell a lie or do anything mean. At this moment Charlie Hill, Aunt Chloe's boy, passed by with his fishing-rod and line. So Johnnie could not stay to hear Miss Rose then. He caught up his straw hat, seized his shrimp-net, and ran off, without even saying, "Excuse me."

"That wath very imperlite," observed Mabel. "And Johnnie began asking the questions too! He ithn't very thad."

"Dear children," said Miss Rose, "you are only little and young, to be [pg 38] sure, but you may as well learn that God never wants you to try to be miserable. He means you to be as merry and happy as you can be. Consider a minute. Have you ever been very unhappy when you have been good?"

"No," said Edith.

"I have," said Mabel, "when I've had the teethache."

Miss Rose laughed.

"Well, that was a pretty good cause; but generally, when children are not naughty, they are happy. You would only vex your dear mamma, and make her feel badly, if you were moping and fretting here, where she sent you to be with your auntie. Then you would spoil auntie's [pg 39] pleasure if, instead of laughing and singing, you were crying and sitting in the corner. She would say, 'O dear, what queer children these are! I'll be glad when they're gone away.'"

"That would be dreadful! to have Aunt Maria think that," said Edith. "But tell us your opinion about it."

"My opinion is, that it is every one's duty to be as cheerful as he can be all the time. If things vex us and trouble us, let us say, 'Never mind.' If it rains to-day, it will be clear to-morrow. If we pray to our Father, about everything, we will never need to be sorrowful long."

Then Miss Rose taught them a pretty little verse:

[pg 40]

"Casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you."

Kneeling that night by her little white bed, Edith said her prayers as usual, and then added another petition:

"Dear Lord Jesus, make me happy every night and day, so that I shall love everybody, and everybody love me."

Edith was already one of those children whose lives are like "a little light, within the world to shine."

[pg 41]

CHAPTER IV.

CHERRIES ARE RIPE.

Faster and faster flew the May days by, and all the world was beautiful. The strawberries grew red and sweet upon the vines, and the children went out with the pickers to gather them, but they didn't work very steadily at this, for the sun was hot, and picking berries is apt to make the back ache. But the cherries most delighted them, and when Aunt Maria told them that they could have just as many cherries to eat as they wanted, and gave them one tree all to themselves, they hardly knew [pg 42] how to express their joy. It was not only in eating the cherries, that they had pleasure, for Aunt Maria let them have a tea-party, and said they might choose their guests.

"They don't know anybody but the Lesters and the Randolphs," she said complacently to Miss Rose.

"I shouldn't be a bit surprised if Edith and Johnnie invited a lot of little ragamuffins from Wood's Alley," replied Miss Rose.

Wood's Alley was one of those wretched neighborhoods, which in cities have a way of setting themselves down near rich people's doors. It was the short cut to Main street, and when the people near Aunt Maria's were in haste, they often took it, [pg 43] rather than go a long way round. The windows in Wood's Alley were broken and dingy, and the interiors—which means all you could see as you passed by, looking at open doors—were dirty, smoky, and uninviting. Children fairly swarmed there, black and white, and as ragged as they could be. Mabel had made Aunt Maria very angry one day, by taking off her best hat, and giving it to a little beggar girl from Wood's Alley, who had been lingering near the gate, and casting admiring looks at it.

"She ought to have known better than to take it from you," Aunt Maria said. "She is nothing but a little thief, and you are a very improvident [pg 44] child. To-morrow I'll take you to church in your old hat."

This did not trouble Mabel much. Mabel did not yet care enough for her clothes, and more than once she had given her things away before. Her mother had been trying to teach her discretion in giving, for some time.

"Well, Rose," said Aunt Maria, "if I thought they would do that, I would tell them to have a picnic out-doors, for I don't want Wood's Alley in my dining-room. Those children are just as like their mother as they can be."

"Auntie," said Johnnie, "there's a splendid boy named Jim Cutts. He's been fishing with Charlie and me. Can he come to the party?"

[pg 45]

"Jim Cutts!" echoed Mrs. MacLain with a sigh. Then she answered,

"Yes, dear, have whom you please; but let your table be out under the trees, on the lawn."

"That'll be splendid!" said Johnnie, running off.

They had ten or twelve little children at their party, and Dinah brought them sandwiches, cakes, and milk, and they had all the cherries they could eat. Edith taught them one of her Sunday-school hymns, and Johnnie made Luce perform all his most cunning tricks for their entertainment. Mabel lent her new doll to the poorest girl, to take home for the night, on the promise that it should surely come home next morning.

[pg 46]

The promise was kept.

When the company had gone, Aunt Maria called them in, and made them take a thorough bath, and put on clean clothes all the way through. Then she bade each sit down, in the room with her, and read a chapter in the Bible. As Mabel could not read, she gave her a picture Bible to look at. She sat by, with so grave a face, and had so little to say, that they all began to feel uncomfortable, and wished themselves somewhere else. Edith's face was covered with blushes, Mabel began to swallow a lump in her throat, and Johnnie at last, growing angry, determined to stand it no longer. He shut up his Bible, and marched to Aunt Maria, who [pg 47] looked at him through her spectacles, and said:

"Well, sir? Who told you to shut up your book?"

"It does no good to read the Bible when anybody's mad with you," said Johnnie. "What have we done, Aunt Maria?"

"I did not say you had done anything."

"But you look so cross, and sit up so straight, and—who ever heard of reading the Bible, in the middle of the afternoon, on a week day?" said Johnnie with an air of assurance.

"Well, Johnnie, to tell the truth, I did not like your bringing all the riff-raff of the town to eat my nice cherries."

[pg 48]

"But you said we might do it."

"I should think, Johnnie, you would have liked better to have such friends as Percival Lester and Reginold Randolph, or Maggie and Clara Vale, to play with. I fear you have low tastes, child."

At this charge, little Johnnie colored up, but he stood his ground.

"The reason we asked them was because they couldn't buy any fruit, if they wanted it ever so much; and we thought it would please them and make them happy."

Edith had been thoughtfully turning over the leaves of her Bible, and now she said:

"Auntie, here are some verses I once read to mamma:

[pg 49]

"'When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich