"That is a very good idea." In the evening her father came in for his share of the requests. "Papa," she asked, "would you just as soon give me my ten cents this evening as Monday?" "Certainly," he replied, taking a dime out of his pocket. "What's going on this evening?" "Oh, nothing's going on, but I've begun to have a box for missionary money--that lovely cardinal one of mamma's with gilt spots on it--and I'm going to put tenths and offerings in it and take them to the mission-band to help send missionaries to the heathen." "Well, that's good. But what are you going to do about candy and such things?" "Oh, I don't put all my money in the box; just some of it. I'm going to learn to give--what was it I told you mamma?" "Systematically?" "Yes, ma'am, that's it. You know, papa, that means giving just so much of your money and giving it at a certain time and never forgetting to give it. That's the reason I wanted my ten cents now, so that I can put some of it in the box to-morrow morning. And, O papa! would it trouble you to give it to me all in pennies?" "Not at all," said her father gravely, and he counted out ten pennies, taking back the dime. "Now how much of that goes in the cardinal box?" "One penny for tenths and two as a thank-offering, because I'm thankful that I've got started. So to-morrow morning three pennies will rattle into the box." "Why to-morrow?" "Because it's the first day of the week. That's the New Testament plan, 'lay by in store on the first day of the week.'" Then she climbed on her father's knee and told him all her day's experience. He approved of her plans and said he hoped she would be able to carry them out. "I think," he said, "it is a very good thing for small folks to learn to spend their money wisely, and a better thing to learn to be willing to share the good they have with those not so well off. But you will have to watch yourself very carefully, for it wont be so easy to do all this when the novelty wears off as it is now." "Oh! I'm always going to do this way," said Marty very determinedly, "all my life." She always entered with heart and soul into whatever interested her, and all that week she could hardly think of anything but the mission-band and the money she was saving for it. By Wednesday she had dropped two more pennies into the box--a free-will-offering she told her mother--and did not spend a cent for anything, though one of her dolls was really suffering for a pink sash.