"And Gracie and I are just as glad to belong to papa as you are," said Max, Grace adding, "Yes, indeed!" as she held up her face for a kiss, which her father gave very heartily. "But, papa, what are we to do about the presents if we mustn't take time to make them?" asked Lulu. "Make fewer and buy more." "But maybe the money won't hold out." "You will have to make it hold out by choosing less expensive articles, or giving fewer gifts." "We'll have to try hard to earn the quarter for good behavior every day, Lu," said Max. "Yes, I mean to; but that won't help with Christmas gifts; it's only for benevolence, you know." "But what you give to the poor, simply because they are poor and needy, may be considered benevolence, I think," said their father. "Oh may it?" she exclaimed. "I'm glad of that! Papa, I--haven't liked Dick very much since he chopped up the cradle I'd carved for Gracie's dolls, but I believe I want to give him a Christmas present; it will help me to forgive him and like him better. But I don't know what would please him best." "Something to make a noise with," suggested Max; "a drum or trumpet for instance." "He'd make too much racket," she objected. "How would a hatchet do?" asked Max, with waggish look and smile. "Not at all; he isn't fit to be trusted with one," returned Lulu, promptly. "Papa, what do you think would be a suitable present for him?" "A book with bright pictures and short stories told very simply in words of one or two syllables. Dick is going to school and learning to read, and I think such a gift would be both enjoyable and useful to him." "Yes; that'll be just the right thing!" exclaimed Lulu. "Papa, you always do know best about everything." "I hope you'll stick to that idea, Lu," laughed Max. "You seem to have only just found it out; but Grace and I have known it this long while; haven't we, Gracie?" "Yes, indeed!" returned the little sister. "And so have I," said Lulu, hanging her head and blushing, "only sometimes I've forgotten it for a while. But I hope I won't any more, dear papa," she added softly, with a penitent, beseeching look up into his face. "I hope not, my darling," he responded in tender tones, caressing her hair and cheek with his hand, "and the past shall not be laid up against you." "Papa, will you take us to the city, as you did last year, and let us choose, ourselves, the things we are going to give?" asked Max. "I intend to do so," his father said. "Judging from the length of your lists, I think we will have to take several trips to accomplish it all. So we will make a beginning before long, when the weather has become settled; perhaps the first pleasant day of next week, if you have all been good and industrious about your lessons." "Have we earned our quarters to-day, papa?" asked Grace. "I think you are in a fair way to do so," he answered smiling, "but you still have a chance to lose them between this and your bedtime."