y saw another
inhabitant of the Flowery Kingdom.

"Don't you want to put something in the box?" John held out a quarter to
the little girl.

Her eyes sparkled with pleasure. Then she shook hands with the small
Chinese maidens, and she felt almost as if she had been to a foreign
country.

If Mrs. Reed had been present she would have marched Charles home in
short order. She did not believe in praising children, or anybody else
for that matter. Everybody, in her opinion, needed a strict hand. She
hardly approved of the singing-school, and if she had really understood
that Charles would stand out alone facing the audience, and then be
applauded for what he had done, and go into the fair and be praised and
"treated," she would have been horrified and put him on the strictest
sort of discipline for the next month.

Charles had endeavored to persuade his mother to go, but she wanted to
get the turkey ready for the Christmas dinner, and had no time for such
trifling things. No woman had who did her duty by her house and her
family. The harder and stonier and more rigid the discipline was, the
more virtue it contained, she thought. There was no especial end in view
with her; it was the way all along that one had to be careful about and
make as rough as possible.

Mr. Reed was secretly proud of his boy. He had a misgiving that all this
praise and attention was not a good thing, but the boy looked so happy,
and it was Christmas Eve, with the general feeling of joy in the air. He
was curiously moved himself. Perhaps happiness wasn't such a weak and
sinful thing after all. It did not seem to ruin the Underhill family.

But he said to Charles as they were nearing home: "I wouldn't make much
fuss about the evening. Your mother thinks such things rather foolish."

They all returned in a crowd, laughing and talking and saying merry
good-nights. Martha had the key of the basement and they trooped in.
Indeed, Martha was so much one of the family that Dr. Hoffman paid her a
deal of respect.

Father was up-stairs in the sitting-room reading his paper. He glanced
up and nodded.

"Oh!" cried Hanny, "where's mother? The house looks so dark and dull and
not a bit Christmassy. It was all so splendid, and oh, Father! Charles
sung like an angel, didn't he, Margaret? They made him sing over again,
and he looked really beautiful. And there were two Chinese girls at the
fair, such queer little things," she flushed, for the word recalled Li