TARLIGHT,” said Hazel, seriously, next morning, as they sat side by side on the porch, “I’ve been thinking.”

“Yes,” said Starlight, dryly; “most people do.”

“I’ve been thinking, Starlight,” Hazel continued, “that perhaps I am not doing quite right by Flutters.”

“You’re doing mighty kind by him, I’m sure, and he thinks so, too. You’ve given him a home and clothes and plenty to eat, and all he has to do is to wait on your ladyship and take charge of the pony. I shouldn’t call that work, nor Flutters doesn’t, either. He says it is all just fun, and if there’s a finer family anywhere than the Bonifaces he’d like to see’em, only he knows he never shall see’em, because there isn’t such a family.”

“Are you making that up, Job Starlight?”

“Well, I guess not. Flutters says something of that sort every time we’re left alone together. It seems as though his heart was so overflowing that he just had to ease it whenever he got a chance.”

“Well, it’s certainly very pleasant to have him feel like that.”

“Why, he just worships the ground—”

Starlight paused to shy a stone at a guinea hen that was encroaching on one of the flower beds—“your mother treads on.”

Starlight knew well enough that he ended this sentence quite differently from what Hazel had expected; but Hazel was wise enough not to show her surprise, and besides, if there was any worshipping to be done, she was about as glad to have Flutters worship the ground her mother trod on as that over which her little feet had travelled.

“No, but I’ve been thinking,” she said, resuming her own line of thought, “that, for all we know, Flutters may be a regular little heathen, for I have an idea that the mulattoes are a very savage tribe. Did you ever hear him say a word about religion, or what he believed, and things like that?”

Starlight scratched his head, by way of helping his memory. “Never a word, come to think of it.”

“Well, now, Starlight, that is very strange, and I believe I’ll take him to church this very morning, and see how he acts.”

“Yes, let’s,” said Starlight, taking most kindly to the project. “If he’s never been in one, it will be awful fun to see how he takes it.”

“People don’t go to church to have awful fun. If that’s what you’re going for, you had better stay home.”

Starlight clapped his hand over his mouth, as though to suppress a most explosive giggle. “My gracious, Hazel! What has come over you?”

“Nothing has come over me, and you know it. I always love to go to church, and I love everything they do there; and I think it’s beautiful where they sing, ‘Lord, have mercy upon us,’ after the commandments, and everybody keeps their head bowed.”

Starlight did not answer. It was evident Hazel was launching upon one of what he called her “high-minded moods;” and, indeed, child though she was, Hazel did have times when she thought very deeply—times when the soul that was in her seemed to reach out after things eternal. It was not at all an unusual experience. It does not always need even ten round years to bring a child to a point of knowing for itself that there is a longing that this world, all wonderful and beautiful though it be, does not fully satisfy. Such a knowing does not make a child less a child, or rob it of an iota of its joyousness, only sometimes lends a sweet and earnest depth to the little God-given life. But to matter-of-fact Job Starlight, it must be confessed that such a mood was not at all satisfactory. He did not comprehend it, and standing in awe of Hazel’s “high mindedness,” always endeavored to bring her down to his own level as quickly as possible by means of some diverting subject. This time he fortunately spied it in the shape of two prim little maidens, Prayer-Book in hand, who came demurely walking, side by side, down the path that skirted the roadway.

“Why, there come the Marberrys,” he remarked.

“Sure enough,” said Hazel, flying to the gate. “Are you going to church?” she called over it.

“Yes,” answered the little Marberrys simultaneously; indeed, they were a pair of simultaneous children. In the first place, they were twins; in the second place, they were as alike in appearance as peas in a pod, and, in the third place, one little brain seemed to be the perfect fac-simile of the other. It was no uncommon thing for them to utter the same thought, in the same words, at the same time; and when this did not happen, one would generally echo what the other had said. They had been christened Mathilde and Clothilde; but Milly and Tilly had been the outcome of that, and of course the similarity in the sound of the two names led to much confusion, since the initial letter was all that distinguished them.

Hazel had come to the wise conclusion “that, so far as possible, it was best just to say things that would do for both, because, like as not, if you meant to say something to Milly—it not being so understood—Tilly would answer, and vice-versa.” But these two little Marberrys were warm friends of hers, and in those days, when so many people were estranged from the Bonifaces, she set a specially high value upon their friendship. Not that the Marberrys were in any sense Tories; only, as Dr. Marberry was rector of St. George’s, they felt it their duty, as a family, to be kind to everybody in the church. Besides, it would have caused the twins a real pang to have been parted from Hazel, for, as they frequently asserted in the presence of less favored playmates, “Hazel Boniface was the cutest and nicest girl they had ever known.”

Starlight’s announcement of “Here come the Marberrys” had suggested to Hazel the idea of joining forces and all going along together. The children were delighted with the plan, as with any plan of hers, and sat down for a friendly chat with Starlight, while Hazel hurried away to summon Flutters. She found him feeding some withered clover heads to Gladys, as he sat comfortably on the top rail of the fence, enclosing the meadow where Gladys was allowed to disport herself on high days and holidays. She waited till she got close up to him, then she announced, “Flutters, you are to go to church with me this morning.”

“To church!” he said, surprised, for he had not heard her coming.

“Yes, go put on the other suit, and meet me at the gate quickly.”

She did not say “your other suit,” feeling, naturally, a certain sense of personal ownership, as far as Flutters’s outfit was concerned.

“All right, Miss Hazel,” he answered, moving off with the alacrity of a well-trained little servant.

“Perhaps you will not care to go with me, girls,” Hazel remarked, as she came down the path, some five minutes later, and looking very pretty in her dark red Sunday dress. “You see I am going to take Flutters.”

“And why should we mind that?” chirped Milly Marberry in a high musical little key, and Tilly remarked, “Yes, why should we mind that?”

&ld............