“Had I better tell her?” Kate, in an under-tone, questions of her brother. “It’s Gustave Doré’s ‘The Deluge’—people and wild beasts huddled together upon a rock rising out of the waste of water, and the great, lashing waves reaching up for them greedily, like wide-mouthed monsters. Odd, isn’t it, that she should notice it so, among so many more attractive prints? She wouldn’t be likely to comprehend if I were to explain, would she? Good, there goes the tea-bell!” And Kate closes the book, glad of an excuse to escape telling the story of the flood to this blithesome little being, whom, she has a dim notion, it might give bad dreams. Seated at the supper-table, and elevated to the common level by aid of three sofa-cushions, Edith for a few moments bestows particular attentions upon a sauce-plate of canned peaches, to the utter disregard of more substantial food. After which she sits back in her chair, and, inclining her head toward her hostess, whispers— “Some of the cake, if you please.” “But you haven’t eaten your bread and butter yet; eat that first, and then you shall have some cake.” “I want it now,” responds the small person, with much firmness, and is directly supplied with the desired article—a measure which might meet with protest if Edith’s mamma were present. No, it wouldn’t, either, come to think of it, for Edith’s mamma knows what are Kate’s ideas concerning sweetmeats. Has she not, on a similar occasion, heard her express herself after this manner?— “If unfeeling people _will persist_ in denying dainties to the wee folks, they may just keep the stuff out of sight. Set it right where the poor little things can watch it with wistful eyes, and then pass it around to the favored few, but for them—‘No, _you_ can’t have any. It isn’t healthy for you!’ If grown-up people can’t deny themselves such things, they haven’t any right to expect the children to. To require children to show more strength of character than they have themselves!—oh, it’s a downright shame! And then, leaving open the places where the forbidden fruit is kept, and when the midgets climb up the closet-shelves and take a bite, on the sly, finding fault with them! Leading them into temptation (and isn’t that what responsible people even _pray_ to be delivered from?) and then, when the poor little things fall into the very trap they have set, finding fault with them, and lecturing them, and all that nonsense! Oh, it’s a cruel shame!” The speaker, you see, is the children’s zealous advocate; and, little people, if ever there is anything you especially covet, or if ever you get into trouble, just go to her. She will plead your cause with burning cheeks, and flashing eyes, and such withering eloquence that the stern household judges will not fail to relent.