The mother saw the wisdom of the suggestion. The child continued to spend much of her time with her mother, but she gradually resumed her former childish occupations. She had always been a gregarious little girl; once more her nursery was a merry, even an hilarious, place. One Saturday a short time ago she was among the six small guests invited to the birthday luncheon of another little girl friend of mine. Along with several other grown-ups I had been invited to come and lend a hand at this festivity. I arrived just as the children were going into the dining-room, where the table set forth for their especial use, and bright with the light of the seven candles on the cake, safely placed in the centre, awaited them. They climbed into their chairs, and then all seven of them paused. "Mother," said the little girl of the house, "who shall say grace?" "_I_ can!" "Let _me_!" "I _always_ do at home!" These and other exclamations were made before the mother could reply. When she was able to get a hearing, she suggested, "I think each one of you might, since you all can and would like to." "You say it first," said one of the children to her little hostess, "because it is your birthday." At a nod from her mother, the little girl said the Selkirk grace:-- "Some hae meat and canna eat, And some wad eat that want it; But we hae meat and we can eat, And sae the Lord be thankit." Then another small girl said her grace, which was Herrick's:-- "Here a little child I stand, Heaving up my either hand; Cold as paddocks though they be, Here I lift them up to Thee, For a benison to fall On our meat and on us all Amen." The next little girl said Stevenson's:-- "It is very nice to think The world is full of meat and drink, And little children saying grace In every Christian kind of place." The succeeding little guests said the dear and familiar "blessing" of so many children:-- "For what we are about to receive, O Lord, make us truly thankful." My little friend into whose life so grievous a sorrow had come was the last to say her grace. It was the poem of Miss Josephine Preston Peabody entitled "Before Meat:-- "Hunger of the world. When we ask a grace Be remembered here with us, By the vacant place. "Thirst with nought to drink, Sorrow more than mine, May God some day make you laugh, With water turned to wine!" There was a silence when she finished, among the children as well as among the grown persons present. "I don't _quite_ understand what your grace means," the little girl of the house said at last to her small guest. "It means that I still have my mamma, and she still has me," replied the child. "Some people haven't anybody. It means that; and it means we ask God to let them have Him. My mamma told me, when she taught it to me to say instead of the grace I used to say when we had my papa."