make the very best use of it."

"And for a part of it, that will be diamonds for you, won't it?" laughed
Maud.

"I hope the captain will think so by the time she's grown up," remarked
Rosie, with a pleasant look at Lulu; "or sooner if they come to be
thought suitable for girls of her age."

"That's nice in you Rosie," Lulu said, flushing with pleasure, "and I
hope you will get your pearls this Christmas."

"I join in both wishes," said Evelyn Leland, "and hope everyone of you
will receive a Christmas gift quite to her mind: but, oh girls, don't
you think it would be nice to give a good time to the poor people about
us?"

"What poor people?" asked Sydney.

"I mean both the whites and the blacks," explained Evelyn. "There are
those Jones children that live not far from Woodburn, for instance:
their mother's dead and the father gets drunk and beats and abuses them,
and altogether I'm sure they are very, very forlorn."

"Oh yes," cried Lulu, "it would be just splendid to give them a good
time!--nice things to eat and to wear, and toys too. I'll talk to papa
about it, and he'll tell us what to give them and how to give it."

"And there are a number of other families in the neighborhood probably
quite as poor and forlorn," said Lora Howard. "Oh I think it would be