"Not a dead weight, by any means," and Mrs. Mason laughed, "and really, papa and I have found it rather a pleasure than otherwise to carry you."
The loving girl kissed the hand that had been stroking her hair, but she was quite too much in earnest to laugh.
"Well, mamma, you know it doesn't say,—'Bear ye one another's burdens, all of you but Kathie, and she needn't.' I think this rule without any exceptions means me, just as much as it does any one; and I shan't feel quite right in my own mind till I begin to follow it. I want to bear part of Alice."
Kathie was talking very fast by this time, and her cheeks were very pink, and her brown eyes very bright.
"You see I've thought it all out, this afternoon. If Miss Atkinson will feed her and house her, I do think I might undertake to clothe her until she is through school and ready to teach; and don't you think I'd feel better when I came to die to have done some little thing for somebody? You see it would come very easy. My dresses, and cloaks, and hats would all make over for her. There wouldn't be much to buy outright, except boots, and stockings, and under clothes, generally."
"And wouldn't you find all that rather a heavy drain on your pocket-money? I don't ask to discourage you, childie; only I want you to consider it all thoroughly, for if you should once undertake this thing and lead Miss Atkinson and Alice to depend on it, there could be no drawing back then."
"Yes, I have thought about it all. Didn't you see me working it out in my head this afternoon, like a sum in arithmetic? I think half the money papa gives me for lunches, and presents, and the other things pocket-money goes for, would be just as good for me as the whole; and I am sure with half of it I could keep Alice along nicely after I once got her started; and its just about this start I want to speak to you now. Papa gave me a hundred and twenty-five dollars to-day to buy me a blue silk gown for Aunt Jane's Christmas-Eve party. Now fifty dollars will get me a lovely white muslin, and a blue sash, and all the fresh little fixings I should need; and that would leave seventy-five dollars, with which I could buy flannels, and boots, and water-proof, and a good, warm, strong outfit altogether, for Alice to commence with. Now do you think papa would be willing? I don't want to ask him, for he doesn't understand silks and muslins, or what Alice needs; but would you answer for him? Just think, mamma, what burdens poor Miss Atkinson has to bear."
Mrs. Mason started to say,—"It is all for her own relations,"—but stopped, for the command didn't read, "Relations, bear ye one another's burdens." Had she any right to interfere between Kathie and this first work of charity the child had ever been inspired to undertake? Would not this object of interest outside herself, apart from blue silk gowns, and flounces, and furbelows, do something for her girl that was likely to be left undone otherwise? What a very cold loving-one-another we were most of us doing in this world, after all? So she bent over and kissed the eager, lovely, upturned face that waited for her words, and said fondly,—
"Yes, I will answer for papa, my darling. I approve your plan heartily, but I will not offer help. This shall be all your own good work."