arn every womanly accomplishment,
and I feel sure you will do your best to please him. Take pains, and you
may be able to send him some specimen of your work as a Christmas gift.
Would you not enjoy that?"

"Yes, ma'am, yes indeed!" returned the little girl, setting resolutely to
work.

"Mamma," said Gracie, coming to Violet's other side, "mayn't I have some
work, too? I like sewing better than Lulu does. Aunt Beulah taught me to
overseam and to hem."

"Then you may help us, little girlie," Violet said, kissing the little
fair cheek, "but must stop the minute you begin to feel fatigued; for I
must not let papa's baby girl wear out her small strength."

Presently, all having been supplied with work, the reading began. Every
one seemed able to listen with enjoyment except Lulu, who bent over her
task with frowning face, making her needle go in and out with impatient
pushes and jerks.

Violet watched the performance furtively for a few minutes, then gently
taking the work from her, said in a pleasant undertone, "You are getting
your stitches too long and too far apart, dear. We will take them out, and
you shall try again."

"I can't do it right! I'll never succeed, if I try ever so hard!" muttered
Lulu, impatiently.

"Oh, yes, you will," returned Violet with an encouraging smile. "Keep
trying, and you will be surprised to find how easy it will grow."

The second attempt was quite an improvement upon the first, and under
Violet's pleased look and warm praise Lulu's ruffled temper smoothed down,
and the ugly frown left her face.

In the mean while Gracie was handling her needle with the quiet ease of
one accustomed to its use, making tiny even stitches that quite surprised
her new mamma.

With all her faults Lulu was incapable of envy or jealousy, especially
toward her dearly loved brother and sister, and when at the close of the
sewing hour Gracie's work was handed about from one to another, receiving
hearty commendation, no one was better pleased than Lulu.

"Isn't it nice, Grandma Elsie?" she said, glancing at her little sister
with a flush of pride in her skill, "a great deal better than I can do,
though she's two years younger."

"It's only because I couldn't run about and play like Lulu, and so I just
sat beside Aunt Beulah and learned to hem and back-stitch and run and
overseam," said Gracie. "But Lulu can do everything else better than I
can."

"And she will soon equal you in that, I trust," said Vio