“I should say so indeed! more than your mind or mine can grasp the idea of.”

Lulu’s eyes sparkled.  “I’m ever so glad for papa!” she said; “he’s just the right person to have a great deal of money, for he will be sure to make the very best use of it.”

“And for a part of it, that will be diamonds for you, won’t it?” laughed Maud.

“I hope the captain will think so by the time she’s grown up,” remarked Rosie, with a pleasant look at Lulu; “or sooner if they come to be thought suitable for girls of her age.”

“That’s nice in you Rosie,” Lulu said, flushing with pleasure, “and I hope you will get your pearls this Christmas.”

“I join in both wishes,” said Evelyn Leland, “and hope everyone of you will receive a Christmas gift quite to her mind:  but, oh girls, don’t you think it would be nice to give a good time to the poor people about us?”

“What poor people?” asked Sydney.

“I mean both the whites and the blacks,” explained Evelyn.  “There are those Jones children that live not far from Woodburn, for instance:  their mother’s dead and the father gets drunk and beats and abuses them, and altogether I’m sure they are very, very forlorn.”

“Oh yes,” cried Lulu, “it would be just splendid to give them a good time!—­nice things to eat and to wear, and toys too.  I’ll talk to papa about it, and he’ll tell us what to give them and how to give it.”

“And there are a number of other families in the neighborhood probably quite as poor and forlorn,” said Lora Howard.  “Oh I think it would be delightful to get them all together somewhere and surprise them with a Christmas tree loaded with nice things!  Lets do it, girls.  We all have some pocket money, and we can get our fathers and mothers to tell us how to use it to the best advantage, and how to manage the giving.”

“I haven’t a bit more pocket money than I need to buy the presents I wish to give my own particular friends,” objected Sydney.

“It’s nice, and right too, I think, to give tokens of love to our dear ones,” Evelyn said, “but we need not make them very expensive in order to give pleasure;—­often they would prefer some simple little thing that is the work of our own hands—­and so we would have something left for the poor and needy, whom the Bible teaches us we should care for and relieve to the best of our ability.”

“Yes, I daresay you are right,” returned Sydney, “but I sha’n’t make any rash promises in regard to the matter.”

CHAPTER II.

In the parlor the older people were conversing on somewhat similar topics:  first discussing plans for the entertainment and gratification of their children and other young relatives, during the approaching holidays, then of the needs of the poor of the neighborhood, and how to supply them; after that they talked of the claims of Home and Foreign Missions; the perils threatening their country from illiteracy, anarchy, heathenism, Mormonism, Popery, Infidelity, etc., not omitting the danger from vast wealth accumulating in the hands of individuals and corporations; also they spoke of the heavy responsibility entailed by its possession.