"That is the best help of all, girls, and one that you can carry with you always. I find mottoes and texts a great help, too, when I want to succeed in any one particular thing. How would it do, at your next meeting, for each one to contribute a text from the Bible, and, if possible, a quotation from one of the poets, applicable to this same wheedling fault?" said Miss Benton.
"I should like that very much," replied Ernestine.
"So would I!" "And I!" "And I!" replied Miriam, Fannie and Winnie.
Gretta only was silent, but Miss Kitty judged it best to pass her silence by without remark.
At this moment, Mr. Fred Benton entered the parlor and was introduced to the girls, and very soon they were all escorted to their homes by their friend's uncle, who proved himself as good an entertainer of these little women as was his sister.
CHAPTER VIII.
STRUGGLES.
"Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home," carolled Winnie, as she descended the stairs the next morning, feeling happy and contented, and as if the world were a pleasant place in which to live and love and to succeed in being good. She felt at peace with everybody, and had such a sense of security that she imagined her giants all conquered, and saw in rosy hues a future of beautiful and pleasant right-doing.
What was her surprise when she entered the dining-room, expecting to find the usual tempting breakfast on the table, to see not the slightest signs of it, and to find the room unoccupied except by little Ralph, who was sitting in front of the empty grate in his night-clothes; and a very cross little boy Winnie soon found him to be, for he set up a howl the moment he saw her.
"'Innie, I 'ants to be d'essed, and it's ugly izout any fire, and I 'ants my b'eakast."