Lulu, talking fast and eagerly, repeated to them what she had told
to Grace, in bed that morning.

"Oh how nice!" Evelyn exclaimed. "How I should like to be in your place,
Lu!"

"I think it's nice, too," Rosie said, "and I'd like mamma or grandpa to
do the same by me. But I'd want my pearls too," she added, laughing.
"Mamma's rich enough to give me them, and do all she need do for
missions and the poor beside."

"But so very, very much is needed," remarked Evelyn.

"I've read in some of the religious papers, that if every church member
would give but a small sum yearly, there would be enough," said Rosie;
"and mamma gives hundreds and thousands of dollars; and grandpa gives a
great deal too. So I don't see that I ought to do without the set of
pearls I've set my heart on. It isn't mamma's place to do other people's
duty for them--in the way of giving, any more than in other things."

Grandma Elsie and her older daughters were in Violet's boudoir.

"I had letters this morning, from your brothers Harold and Herbert, Vi,
and have brought them with me to read to you," the mother said, taking
the missives from her pocket.

"Thank you, mamma; I am always glad to hear what they write; their
letters are never dull or uninteresting," Violet replied, her sister
Elsie adding, "They are always worth hearing, Lester and I think. What
dear boys they are!"

"And quite as highly appreciated by my husband as by yours, Elsie,"
Violet said with a bright, happy look.

"They are a great blessing and comfort to their mother," Grandma Elsie
remarked, "as indeed all my children are--their letters always a source
of pleasure, but these even more so than most; for they show that my
college boys are greatly stirred up on the subject of missions at home
and abroad; full of renewed zeal for the advancement of the Master's
cause and kingdom."

She then read the letters which gave abundant evidence of the
correctness of her estimate of the state of her sons' minds.

They were working as teachers in a mission Sunday school, as Bible
readers and tract distributors among the poor and degraded of the city
where they were sojourning; doing good to bodies as well as souls--their
mother supplying them with means for that purpose in addition to what
she allowed them for pocket-money;--also exerting an influence for good
among their fellow students.

They told of interesting meetings held for prayer and conference upon
the things concerning the