"'But what about the baby? If he should die now, will he be poor then, do you think?' I asked softly. "She moaned as she hugged him tighter. 'I love him more than anything in this world, or out of it,' she exclaimed. "'And perhaps--oh, Martha, I don't know--but perhaps God loved you too well to let you. You would rather be rich with him there, some day, for ever, than just keep him a little while here?' "She shook her head; but while she rocked him in her arms, her eyes were fastened on the paper before her, and her pale lips repeated, 'He became poor, He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich.' "We stopped a little while longer, till we had seen the poor little dears cuddled together asleep under their mother's only remaining shawl, and with a promise of sending round the first thing in the morning, and that I thought I knew of some work which I might get for her, Minnie and I came away, too sad at heart to say a word to each other." * * * * * "But when I laid down that night in our warm snug bed, Minnie, who was awake, whispered to me softly, 'It was kind of Him to become poor for us, Agnes, wasn't it? For what comfort could we give her if He hadn't?' "And I thought so too, and could not but thank Him over again before I slept for His love in taking our flesh and bearing our sorrows, that we might some day share His glory." [Illustration] CHAPTER XVIII. _NEW YEAR'S EVE._ "I call it extremely selfish of you and John to have had this secret all this time, and never to have told us," said Hugh, on the morning before New Year's Day, as they all sat at breakfast. Agnes looked up over the "cosy," a surprised hurt look overshadowing the brightness of her face. "You do not _really_ think it unkind, Hugh?" she asked; "you are only trying to tease me." "I'm not joking at all," answered Hugh, dropping his eyes so as not to meet her beseeching ones. "For you and John to have kept this to yourself all this time is exceedingly selfish." "Why, _I_ didn't know," said Minnie. "Nor I," said Alice. "That's different!" exclaimed Hugh hastily; "you're _girls_; but I'm only two years younger than John, and I don't see any reason why you should not have told me." "There was no reason," said Agnes gently, "except just this: Mother thought that it would be a little pleasure for New Year's Eve, and a secret that is told to everyone is no secret." "But I might have been told; I should not have let it out like a girl." "I dare say," said Alice, her eyes sparkling with displeasure; "and so because we are girls we are not to be trusted with anything, while because you are boys--for no other reason--you----" She paused, Agnes's face stopped her, and then her eyes turned to John's, and she noticed that his were fixed earnestly on the text, which was just touched by the morning sunshine, as it crept silently along the wall-- "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?"