an't bear 'rithmetic," was the tender-hearted one's comment, "but I
have to learn my tables, else Charity'd worry, and Dorry wouldn't like
it. And jography's nice, 'cause Pa likes me to tell him about it, when
he comes home. Soon's I get big, I mean to make Helen and Is'bella learn
their lessons like everything!"

Alas! The new educational movement met with a sudden but temporary check
in the shape of the measles. One fine day, that unwelcome visitant came
into the house, and laid its hand on poor little Helen. In a few days,
Isabella and Jamie were down beside her--not very ill, but all three
just ill enough to require a darkened room, careful nursing, and a
bountiful supply of Dorry's willing oranges.

This was why Charity, for a time, was cut off from her studies, and why
she was quite taken by surprise when word came to her of the G. B. C.,
and that she was to join it, as soon as the little ones could spare her.

You have seen Charity botanizing on the hill-side with the other girls,
but to understand her zeal, you should have heard her defend the science
against that sarcastic brother of hers--Daniel David. In vain that
dreadful boy hung dried stalks and dead branches all about her room, and
put dandelions in her tea cup, and cockles in her hair brush--pretending
all the while that he was a good boy bringing "specimens" to his dear
sister. In vain he challenged every botanical remark she made, defying
her to prove it. She always was equal to the occasion in spirit, if not
in knowledge.

One Saturday morning, though, she had her triumph, and it was an event
to be remembered. Daniel David had listened, with poorly concealed
interest, while Charity was describing a flower to Ellen Eliza,--how it
has calyx, corolla, stamens, and pistils; how some flowers have not all
these parts, but that _all_ flowers have pistils and stamens,--when he,
as usual, challenged her to "prove it."

"Very well," said Charity, with dignity, and yet a little uneasily; "you
bring the flowers, and I think I can satisfy Your Majesty."

Out he ran, and in a moment he came back, bearing defiantly a fine
red-clover blossom.

"Ha, my lady!" he said, as he handed it to her. "There's the first
flower I came to; now let's see you find your pistils and stamens and
thingamies."

Instead of replying at once, Charity looked long and silently at the
pretty flower in her hand. She seemed rather puzzled and crestfallen.
Daniel David laughed aloud; ev