dt determinedly. "She ought to know her prayers. If she don't
begin now she never will know them."

Mrs. Gerhardt smiled. Many of her husband's religious
idiosyncrasies were amusing to her. At the same time she liked to see
this sympathetic interest he was taking in the child's upbringing. If
he were only not so hard, so narrow at times. He made himself a
torment to himself and to every one else.

On the earliest bright morning of returning spring he was wont to
take her for her first little journeys in the world. "Come, now," he
would say, "we will go for a little walk."

"Walk," chirped Vesta.

"Yes, walk," echoed Gerhardt.

Mrs. Gerhardt would fasten on one of her little hoods, for in these
days Jennie kept Vesta's wardrobe beautifully replete. Taking her by
the hand, Gerhardt would issue forth, satisfied to drag first one foot
and then the other in order to accommodate his gait to her toddling
steps.

One beautiful May day, when Vesta was four years old, they started
on one of their walks. Everywhere nature was budding and bourgeoning;
the birds twittering their arrival from the south; the insects making
the best of their brief span of life. Sparrows chirped in the road;
robins strutted upon the grass; bluebirds built in the eaves of the
cottages. Gerhardt took a keen delight in pointing out the wonders of
nature to Vesta, and she was quick to respond. Every new sight and
sound interested her.

"Ooh!--ooh!" exclaimed Vesta, catching sight of a low,
flashing touch of red as a robin lighted upon a twig nearby. Her hand
was up, and her eyes were wide open.

"Yes," said Gerhardt, as happy as if he himself had but newly
discovered this marvelous creature. "Robin. Bird. Robin. Say
robin."

"Wobin," said Vesta.

"Yes, robin," he answered. "It is going to look for a worm now. We
will see if we cannot find its nest. I think I saw a nest in one of
these trees."

He plodded peacefully on, seeking to rediscover an old abandoned
nest that he had observed on a former walk. "Here it is," he said at
last, coming to a small and leafless tree, in which a winter-beaten
remnant of a home was still clinging. "Here, come now, see," and he
lifted the baby up at arm's length.

"See," said Gerhardt, indicating the wisp of dead grasses with his
free hand, "nest. That is a bird's nest. See!"

"Ooh!" repeated Vesta, imitating his pointing finger with one of
her own. "Ness--ooh!"

"Yes," said Gerhardt, putting her down agai