"May we go away and think it over?" said Ethelwyn soberly.
"Yes."
So they slid down and disappeared to think it out alone, as they always did when obliged to settle questions for themselves. Ethelwyn went outdoors, and crawled into the hammock on the porch. The wind blew mistily from the sea and was heavy with dampness and cold, but the child paid no attention to that; she was so busy thinking. Surely, she thought, there was money enough for Dick and the others without giving up her camera and the sea trip. She had longed for a camera all summer. Nan had the use of her mother's and had taken their pictures in all places and positions, and she did so wish for one. But then, there was poor Dick, how uncomfortable he had looked.
Elizabeth, meantime, went to the bedside of her beloved doll family. They were lying serene and placid, exactly as she had placed and tucked them in at bedtime, with her own motherly hand, and the memory of Dick lying racked with pain on the comfortless bed where she had first seen him, almost decided her at once. But a doll that could walk and talk, though, would be lovely.
"But then, darlings," she said, after a little, "you might think I would love her better than you, and you are such dears, you don't deserve that."
So Beth kissed them all with fervor, her mind quite made up.
While they were away, Aunty Stevens said, "Isn't that a pretty hard test?"
The children's mother shook her head thoughtfully at the dancing fire.
"I hope not," she said. "I don't wish them to do things now that they will repent of afterwards. But it seems to me that if they are trained now to be unselfish, they will always be so. Don't you think, dear Mrs. Stevens, that the whole trouble with the world is its selfishness?"
"No doubt at all about it," said the older woman, nodding emphatically over her flying needles.