“No, you won’t give up your Trump; he is yours for keeps! And, yes, I will see what can be done for this little Liebchen, American sister of your German maid! If she can be cured, cured she shall be! I’ve three healthy youngsters of my own and a plump, sound little niece, any of whom might have been crippled. And I’ve been entrusted with so much money, Bethie, that even if it cost two thousand dollars to cure that child it would not entail sacrifice on any of us to pay the bill. As time goes on I shall want you to learn what all this power means, Beth, my dear, and to help my girls and boy to use it wisely, unselfishly. I think you are going to be exceedingly helpful in that way, with your warm little heart and your sensible little head! We’ll look into Liebchen’s case at once, Bethie, and I’m much obliged to you for ferreting it out for Aunt Alida and me--aren’t we, Alida?” “Of course we are, Jimmy dear!” cried Aunt Alida. “And it will count for Beth that she would have given up her dear pony, if she had to, rather than let Liebchen remain a cripple. So she will have a part in two ways in the cure, if it ever is a cure.” “Oh, what dear, dear uncles and aunts you are!” cried Beth, her eyes wet with happy tears. “And why do people say that money is bad? It is perfectly beautiful to go about doing things!” “Poor and rich, it is all one, Bethie darling,” murmured Aunt Alida, her lips touching the little girl’s hair as she leaned forward in her chair to answer Beth. “It is the heart that makes poverty into riches, or, when it is a hard heart, turns riches into the most ghastly poverty.” Beth rode home that afternoon blissfully, but seriously happy. Trump was hers, the sacrifice was not required of her, and at every beat of his small hoofs she loved him better. Yet she was thinking long thoughts, for a child of eleven, and she saw the road of her coming years stretching out before her, as the road she was riding stretched, growing denser, fuller with every pace, but full of beautiful and glorious possibilities. It led her into the world of grownupdom, where there were to be great tasks to fulfil, great good to be done. And little Beth, true to her great-aunt Rebecca’s old-fashioned, good training, prayed in her heart that when the time came she might not fail. CHAPTER X THE HOSPITAL ON THE HEIGHTS Christmas has a way of jumping out at the world as if it had crouched down low behind Thanksgiving Day and hidden. Then, suddenly, out it pops crying: “Ah, ha! You didn’t know I was so near, did you?” Whereupon everybody gets quite flustered and is set rushing and hurrying upon shopping and working to make up for being caught unawares. Christmas played this favorite trick upon the Cortlandt family this year. He popped out upon Mrs. Cortlandt one morning at breakfast in the sunny, rosy breakfast room which had so entranced Beth on the night of her arrival.