“How are you, my darlings?” he asked, kissing them in turn, then seating himself and drawing them into his arms.

“I think we’re both very well, papa,” answered Lulu.

“Yes, indeed!” said Grace, “and I’m ever so glad of what Lu’s been telling me ’bout the money you are going to give us if we’re good, and the choosing ’bout where the other shall go that you’re going to give to help send missionaries to the heathen.  Thank you for both, dear papa; but don’t you think we ought to be good without being paid for it?”

“Yes, I certainly do, my dear little girl; but at the same time I want my children to have the luxury of being able to give something which they have, in some sense, earned for that purpose.  I want you to learn in your own experience the truth of the words of the Lord Jesus, ’It is more blessed to give than to receive.’

“Now while you are so young, not capable of earning much in any other way, your proper business the task of gaining knowledge and skill to fit you for future usefulness, I see no more fitting way than this for you to be furnished with money for religious and benevolent purposes.”

“Papa,” asked Lulu, “do you think it is never right for anybody to have diamonds or handsome jewelry of any kind?”

“I do not think it my business to judge in such matters for everybody,” he answered, caressing her and smiling down tenderly into her eyes; “but I must judge for myself—­applying the rules the Bible gives me—­and to a great extent for my children also while they are so young.”

“Not for Mamma Vi?” Lulu asked, with some little hesitation.

“No; she is my wife, not my child, and old enough to judge for herself.”

“She has a great deal of beautiful jewelry,” remarked Lulu with an involuntary sigh, “and Grandma Elsie has still more.  Rosie asked her once to show it to us children, and she did.  Oh she has just the loveliest rings and whole sets of jewelry—­pins and ear-rings to match—­and chains and bracelets!  I’m sure they must be worth a great deal of money; Rosie said they were, and I’m sure Grandma Elsie is a real true Christian—­a very, very good one and that Mamma Vi is too.”

“And I agree with you in that,” was the emphatic reply.  “But my daughter and I have nothing to do with deciding their duty for them in regard to this or other things.  God does not require that of us; indeed forbids it; ‘Judge not, that ye be not judged,’ Jesus said.

“But I see plainly that my duty is as I explained it to you last evening, and I thought then you were convinced that it would be selfish and wrong for you and me to spend a large sum for useless ornament that might otherwise be used for the good of our fellow creatures, and the advancement of Christ’s kingdom.”

“Yes, papa, I was, and I’m trying, and asking God to help me, not to want the ring I asked you for; but I’m afraid it’ll take me quite a while to quite stop wishing for it,” she sighed.