“No, dear child, that is not required; it is right that parents and children, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, should have a deeper, stronger love for each other than they can possibly feel for mere acquaintances or those whom they do not know personally; but we are to love every body with a love of benevolence, wishing them well and being willing to help them when in poverty or distress; if in our power to do so.
“Also we must be patient and forbearing under provocation; the love of benevolence, if we have it, will help us to be so, and make us willing to yield honors and pleasures to others, even though it seem to us that we ourselves have the best right to them.”
“Papa,” said Lulu, “I know you mean that for me; and I do intend to try hard to be unselfish toward all my little friends while they are here; I asked God to help me when I said my prayers this morning,” she added, in a lower key.
“I am glad to hear it,” he said, pressing his lips to her cheek; “it is only by his help that we can overcome in the fight with the evil of our natures.
“We will go down to breakfast now; for there’s the bell.”
The weather proved mild, the sun shone brightly in a cloudless sky, and the little girls greatly enjoyed the short drive with their father.
They called at the house where the Jones family lived, but were in too great haste to stay many minutes. Grace did not get out of the carriage at all; the captain and Lulu alighted, and went into the cabin, but declined to sit down. Lulu handed the dress, done up in a neat bundle, to the girl for whom she had intended it, and greatly enjoyed her look of astonishment as she received it, her eagerly impatient tug at the string that held it together, and her scream of delight when success crowned her efforts and the dress—a far better and prettier than she had ever owned before—met her astonished gaze.
“’Tain’t for me?” she cried; “say, miss, you didn’t never intend to gimme it, did ye?”
“Yes,” said Lulu; “I brought it on purpose for you. Papa told me I might.”
“Well now! I never was so s’prised in all my born days!” was the child’s half breathless exclamation. “It’s mighty good o’ ye; and yer pap too.”