Ah, the horrors of poverty!  Lita understands the poor little irresolute figure.  No money means no butter crackers, and no butter crackers means despair.  The little steps come homeward.  The blue eyes are bent on the ground.  She does not know that grandpa has come quietly up behind her, and found each little silver piece.

The little rebel appeared in the hall just as dinner was carried in.  There was a most savory odor of fricassee.  Grandma and mamma and Lita were just entering the dining room.

“Well,” Zay calmly announced, “I ’cluded not to go till after dinner.”

“Is that so?” quietly replied her mother.  “But you might better have gone on.  Any little girl who wants to leave a nice home because she can’t have her own way, needn’t look for any dinner here!  I expected you to dine on butter crackers and bears.”

“I like chicken, I do,” said proud little Zay with appealing eyes, but no tears; “and then I lost all my pennies!”

In vain did the tender hearted grandma pull mamma’s dress,—­mamma entered the dining room and shut the door; and up came poor Zay to the room where I awaited my dinner, for she had seen a tray borne hither.  But she did not know that her mamma’s parting injunction had been, “you must not give her anything!  I must—­indeed, I wish to teach my child a lesson.”

Little sun-hat and empty porte-monnaie put away, quietly she seated herself on the sofa opposite me, with two little fat feet hanging dangling down.  Dignity kept her silent, and amusement mingled with pity made me so.

This state of things lasted for some moments, while the dainties were diminishing from my plate.  Every mouthful was wistfully watched.  At length with grave old-fashioned face, she asked, “Are you sorry for beggar chil’en, Aunty?”

“Very sorry indeed,” I replied with composure.

Then with a tremor in the voice: 

“Aunty, if you saw a little child in the street a starvin’ to death for some bread and butter wif jelly on it, wouldn’t you give her some?”

I shook my head.  Another pause, and then with little fat hands clasped, and voice full of sobs, poor little Zay cried out, “Oh, Aunty, if you saw a little girl starvin’ to death for sponge cake, wouldn’t you give her some?”

“How could I, Zay, if the little girl’s mamma had forbidden it?”

All her fortitude was gone.  She burst into tears.  She laid her head down on the sofa and sobbed.

“Oh, oh! and they had fricasseed chicken, with Mary’s nice toast under it; and you have sponge-cake and wine-jelly; and I haven’t nuffin; there isn’t one single butter cracker in the house!”

At this climax of misery the house resounded with her lamentations, in which my tears would mingle; but fortunately the dear grand-parents soon appeared to comfort their darling.  And so, somehow, up on grandpa’s lap it became easier to see how naughty it was to annoy good old Mary, and how ungrateful it was to wish to run away from home.  And pardons were begged and kisses were given, and the three little silver pieces crept back into the tiny porte-monnaie, and Zay had some of Mary’s nice toast with lots of gravy, and a drum-stick and a wish-bone.