Elizabeth wiped a laughing tear or two from her own eyes. "I'm glad Aunty Evelyn found out that I was right," was all she said. "Now come, children, and let mother wash your hands. Celia has baked a beautiful gingerbread man for Carroll's lunch and a beautiful gingerbread lady for Doris and a cunning little gingerbread baby for Baby Dick." "Oh, goody! goody!" shouted the children in ecstatic chorus. In a trice their singular encounter with Aunty Evelyn and Mr. Hickey was forgotten in eager contemplation of the more obvious and immediate future of the gingerbread man, the gingerbread lady and the gingerbread child; each of whom, plump and shining, reposed in the middle of a pink china plate, their black currant eyes widely opened upon destiny. AFTERWORD It will be easily perceived by the intelligent reader that there really isn't any end to this story. The chronicler is forced to leave the problems of the Brewster parents unsolved in many details, while the Brewster children, in company with the present generation of young Americans, are still growing up;--growing up, it is devoutly to be hoped, into better men and women than their parents. Stronger physically, more alert mentally, of clearer vision; better fitted to carry the world's burdens and direct the world's activities. Unless the Brewsters accomplish this much for their children they have failed in the greatest thing given them to do; for it is not more wealth, better houses, finer raiment that the world is crying out for, but better, healthier and more inspired men and women. And, clearly, it rests with the fathers and mothers as to whether their children shall reach this higher level toward which humanity weakly struggles with tears and groans. Is love and brotherhood to rule in a world wherein all the finer qualities of mind and heart find room to grow and flourish? Or is humanity to go on its old, old weary way, hating and being hated; the strong trampling the weak under foot; the child often suffering from ignorance and injustice--even in its own home; and growing up to carry on the same false ideas.