"Celia, do you know what it is to feel downright wicked?" asked Charley, in a different tone. "Yes--no--not as you mean, I fancy." "No, I don't think you do. I wish you did." "Charley!" "Well, I mean, I wish I didn't! Father talks of hanging things; I feel sometimes as if I could hang everything." "Me?" demanded Celia, smiling. "No, I wouldn't hang you; and I wouldn't hang Mother," pursued Charley, meditatively. "Nor Bay Fairy, nor Lucy, nor the black cat; nor Harry--I think not; nor Cicely, except first thing in a morning when she rouses me up out of a nice sleep, or last thing at night when she packs me off to bed whether I will or not. I am not sure about Father. As to the rest, they would have to look out for themselves." "Now, Charley!" said Celia, laughing. "Celia, you don't know what it is to feel wicked, I wish I could get something to make me--not keep good, because I have to do--but make me want to be good." Celia was silent for a moment. Then she said, very slowly and hesitatingly, "Charley, I suppose we shall only want to be good, when we want to please God, and to be like Jesus Christ." "I don't know anything about that," said Charley, turning round to look at her. "I know very little about it," said Celia, blushing. "But I have begun to think, Charley--only just lately--that we ought to care more about pleasing God than anything else." "Is that what makes you such a darling of a sister?" said Charley. "I'll think about it if it be. You are always trying to please everybody, it seems to me. But I don't think I could keep it up, Celia. I don't care much about pleasing anybody but myself." "Charley," said his sister, with a great effort, "there is a verse in the Bible which I was reading this morning--'Even Christ pleased not Himself.'" She spoke very shyly; but she loved this younger brother dearly, and longed to see him grow up a really great and good man. And she found it easier to talk to Charley, Lucy, and Cicely than to others. She would not have dared to quote a text to Henrietta. "Well, but you know we can't be like Him," said Charley, reverently. "We must, before we can go to heaven." "Well, then, I might as well give up at once!" answered Charley, beginning to whistle. "Oh no, Charley dear!" said Celia, so earnestly, that Charley stopped whistling, and looked up in her face. "He will help us to do right if we try. I do want you to grow up a good man, loving God and doing good to men. Won't you ask Him, Charley?" "Well, perhaps--I'll see about it," said Charley, as his sister stroked the light hair affectionately away from his brow. "At any rate, I don't think I'll go to St. Germains just yet. You are a dear old Celestina!" [1] Tennyson, "Idylls of the King"--Enid. [2] The alphabet, which in the hornbooks was surmounted with a cross and the lines: "Christ's cross be my speed In these letters to my need." [3] Heb. x. 25. [4] Matt. vii. 11. [5] Luke xi. 13.