"Mumsie," she said suddenly, twisting herself round, so that the bow Mrs. Drury was tying nearly slipped out of her hand, and she bade the child keep still a moment longer. "Now, what is it, girlie?" "Oh, mumsie, I do _wish_ Monica Beauchamp had never been born!" Amethyst brought out the words with such vehemence, that for the moment her mother was too astonished to reply. "I do, mumsie," repeated the child vehemently. "Amethyst, I am ashamed of you," said her mother sternly. "I cannot understand what you mean. I don’t think you quite know what you are saying." "I do mean it, really, mumsie, but I daresay it’s wicked of me. Only I know she’s going to spoil everything, and Olive doesn’t care a bit about me now; all she wants is Monica." And Amethyst repeated what Olive had said that afternoon. But if she expected her mother to take her part, she was disappointed. "I am afraid my girlie is jealous of this new rival," she said, gently, as she drew the little night-gowned figure on to her knee. "You must not expect to be first always, Amethyst. You have had very happy times with the Franklyns, and I have been very pleased for them to make up a little of what you miss by having no sisters. But Olive, especially, seems older than you, and I do not at all wonder at her making this new friend, and I only hope that they will help each other to be good girls. And, surely, Amethyst, if you have Elsa left, you ought to be content. I do not know a nicer, dearer girl than Elsa, anywhere. I am really very glad that it is she who is left to you. It might be very sad if _she_ forsook you for some one else, but I don’t think Elsa Franklyn would do that." "No, I’m sure she wouldn’t, mumsie," cried the warm-hearted little girl; "she is a dear old darling, and, as you say, so long as I have her it doesn’t matter so much about Olive. All the same, I wish that Monica had never come to our school." "I am afraid you have already forgotten the passage you have been learning this evening, for your Sunday class to-morrow," said her mother, somewhat sadly. And Amethyst hung her head in confusion, for the verses she had been saying over and over, not an hour before, were those of that beautiful chapter in the first epistle to the Corinthians, where the Apostle says: "Without charity, I am nothing." "I forgot, mumsie," she murmured. "Yes, dear; alas! we all forget so soon. Shall we kneel down together now, darling, and ask our loving Heavenly Father to root up this little weed of jealousy, and sow instead the seed of unselfish love; not only for those we have a natural affection for, but love even for our enemy if we had one." Amethyst Drury often looked back to that Saturday night, and her mother’s prayer, in the days and weeks that followed; and the memory of it helped her to overcome her feeling of aversion towards the girl who had, to a large extent, usurped her place.