I did not explain, but saw from Bess's expression that I had sown a grain of a seed, and wondered when it would blossom. Then we turned round and slipped down the hill at a brisk rattle, all the dogs following hotly behind, to an old dame who had long had a promise of a blanket. The old body came out joyfully and stood by her wicket gate, beaming with pleasure. It is an awful thing, sometimes, the joy of the poor over some little gift. It brings home to us at times our own unworthiness more than anything else. Old Sukey, as she is called by her neighbours, took her blankets from Bess with delight. "I shall sleep now," she said, "like a cat by the hearth, come summer come winter," and her old wrinkled face began to twitch, and tears to rise in her poor old rheumy eyes. "Pretty dear," she said to Bess, "'tis most like a blow itself. I wish I had a bloom to offer, but 'tis only a blessing now that I can give thee." Again we turned, and pattered back post-haste up the Barrow Road to a distant cottage. "Is it a good thing to get a blessing?" asked Bess, suddenly. "A very good thing, for it makes even the richest richer." "Then," answered Bess, "when I grow up I mean to get a great many blessings." "How, little one, will you do that?" "Why," answered Bess, "I shall give to everybody everything they want, and buy for all the children all the toys that I can find." "But supposing that you are not rich, that you haven't money in your purse, or a cheque-book from the bank like papa?" "Then I shall have to pray--and that will do it, for I'm sure the good Lord wouldn't like to disoblige me." At last all our visits were paid, and we had left seven happy old souls, whom it was a comfort to think would all sleep the sounder for our visit of that day. As we drove home, Bess suddenly turned round and said-- "Mamsie, why can't they buy blankets?" It is very hard for the child-mind to grasp that the necessities of life--bread, blankets, and beds--do not come, in a child's language, "all by themselves." Puppies, pets, and chocolates, children can understand have to be paid for; but the dull things, they consider, surely ought to grow quite naturally, like the trees outside the nursery windows, all by themselves, and of their own accord, as they would say. I tried to explain to Bess what poverty really was, and told her what it would mean to have no money, but to buy the absolute bare necessities of life. Bess listened open-mouthed, and at the end exclaimed-- "Why has God given me so much, and to poor children, then, so little?" "I wonder," I replied; "but, anyway, as you have got so much, you must do what you can to make other little boys and girls happier. For God, when he gives much, will also ask much some day."