at deeds. We could not even remember the names of
so many heroes. So it is pretty plain that only a few, five or six,
perhaps, of the millions of boys and girls in the country, can be really
famous. All the rest have got to take a lower place and make the best of
it. But if a fellow can plan and carry out enterprises to make lots of
money, he can do a great deal with it in the world."

"I don't care just for money!" cried Tom again; "I want to _do_
something!"

"Tom, you ought to be an explorer," said Theodora; "a discoverer, like
Livingstone, or Sir John Franklin, or Dr. Kane. If you could discover
the North Pole, or a new race of people in Africa, you would be famous."

"I should like that," exclaimed Tom. "I should like to make a voyage up
north. I can stand any amount of cold; and I never saw the sun so hot
yet that I couldn't work, or run a mile, under it. Those folks that get
sun-struck must be sort of sick, pindling fellows, I guess."

"Tom, I think that you would make a real go-ahead explorer," said Ellen.
"I hope you will stick to it."

"Well, it takes money to fit out exploring expeditions," said Addison.
"But there are other discoveries fully as important as those in the far
north, or in Africa; discoveries in science bring the best kind of fame,
like those of Franklin, Morse, Tyndall, Darwin and Pasteur. There is no
end to the discoveries that can be made in science. It is the great
field for explorers, I think. Grand new discoveries will be made right
along now, and the more there are made the more there will be made; for
one scientific discovery always seems to open the way to another."

"Oh, but I don't know anything about science," exclaimed Tom. "I don't
believe I ever shall."

"No one does without hard study," replied Addison. "But any one can
afford to study if by doing so some splendid new invention can be
brought about."

"Dora, what are we girls going to do?" said Kate, laughing. "It makes me
feel lonesome to hear the boys talk of the great exploits they mean to
perform."

"There doesn't seem to be so much that girls can do," replied Theodora,
with a sigh. "Still, I know of one thing I wish to do very much," she
continued with a glance at Addison.

"What is it?" said Tom. "What are you going to astonish the world with?"

"Oh, I haven't the courage to talk about it," replied Theodora. "And it
looks so hard to me and I shall need to study so long to get prepared,
that I sometimes think I