lost her purse with the dollar she had saved up for your Christmas
present--lost the money for dear father's present; and all because she
took it with her to buy a five-cent pencil--a green pencil with purple
glass in the end of it; to buy something for _herself_ before
Christmas!" Clytie paused tragically. "Of course, if she hadn't taken
her money out to spend it on herself she wouldn't have lost it!"

"I don't care!" burst out the culprit, her big dark eyes, just like her
mother's, flashing from under her brown curls, and her red lips set
defiantly. "It was my own money, anyhow, if I did lose it. I earned it
all myself. It wasn't yours!"

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" interposed the father in gentle reproof. "Little girls
mustn't talk like that to dear mother. Come, get up here on father's
knee--so." He took off the red cap, tucked the brown curly head in the
bend of his arm, his chin resting on the top of it as he went on, with
the child's small hands clutching at his. "Mary must always do what
mother says; but, so far as this money is concerned, you can make me
something that I would like far better than anything you could buy. Why
don't you make me another pincushion, for instance? The one you gave me
last year is quite worn out."

"A pink one?" asked Mary faintly.

"Yes. What's the matter now?" The child had suddenly wriggled to a
kneeling posture in his hold and had her little strangling arms round
his neck in a tempest of sobs.

"I don't want to give you a pi-ink pincushion--I don't want to! I want
my dollar! I want my dollar--to spend! I want--Father, I want my