han any of the others, because my teeth ache.
I've often wished we could do something for the Mission; but I'm so
poor, and I sha'n't get any goose-money till autumn. I wish we could
think of some plan by which we could make some more. Chrissie and I are
always talking about it. There seems so few ways in which girls of
fourteen can make money. We thought of writing and asking the editor of
the employment column; but mother laughed at us, and said it was
nonsense. It's not nonsense to us!"

"If we could only have a sale of work," said Lilias slowly. She was
still staring dreamily out of the window, and hardly realised what she
was saying, but the other four girls turned sharply towards each other,
and a flash of delight passed from one pair of eyes to the other.

"Ah-ah!" sighed Elsie.

"Splendiferous!" cried Nan.

"How simp-lay love-lay!" drawled Christabel, with the languid elegance
of manner for which she was distinguished; and Agatha beamed broadly all
over her good-humoured face, oblivious of the sufferings of the poor in
the prospect of her own amusement.

"What fun we should have! I'd bake the cakes and manage the refreshment
stall! Tea and coffee, threepence a cup; lemonade, fourpence; fruit
salad, sixpence a plate!"

"I'd sell toffee in tins, and have a pin-cushion table, and make every
single soul I know give me a contribution."

"I'd give my new oak bracket. No, it's too big. I couldn't spare that;
but I'd carve something else; and make little brass trays and panels.
`High art stall: Miss Margaret Rendell. Objects of bigotry and virtue
to be handed over to her,' and don't you forget it!"

"I'll take visitors out in the punt at threepence a head. I'm so stupid
that I can't do any work, but the idea is mine, and that ought to count
for something," said Lilias; and a vision rose before her eyes of a slim
white figure gracefully handling the pole as the punt glided down the
stream. Punting was a most becoming occupation; on the whole she could
not have hit on a pleasanter manner of helping the cause. "I daresay I
shall make quite a lot of money!" she added cheerfully; and her sisters
laughed with the half-indulgent, half-derisive laughter with which they
were accustomed to greet Lilias's sayings. She was so sweetly
unconscious of her own selfishness, and looked so pretty as she turned
her big bewildered eyes from one to the other, that they had not the
heart to disturb her equanimity.

"