"I'd gather them about me," mused Sidney Burgoyne, dreamily, her
eyes on the sky, a whimsical smile playing about her mouth, "I'd
gather all seven together--"

"Oh, you've come down to seven?" chuckled Mrs. Brown.

"Well, seven's a good Biblical number," Mrs. Burgoyne said serenely,
"--and I'd say 'Children, all music is yours, all art is yours, all
literature is yours, all history and all philosophy is waiting to
prove to you that in starting poor, healthy, and born of intelligent
and devoted parents, you have a long head-start in the race of life.
All life is ahead of you, friendships, work, play, tramps through
the green country in the spring, fires in winter, nights under the
summer stars. Choose what you like, and work for it, your father and
I can keep you warm and fed through your childhoods, and after that,
nothing can stop you if you are willing to work and wait."

"And then suppose your son asks you why he can't go camping with the
other boys in summer school, and your daughter wants to join the
cotillion?" asked Mrs. Lloyd.

"Why, it wouldn't hurt them to hear me say no," said Mrs. Burgoyne,
in surprise. "I never can understand why parents, who practise every
imaginable self-denial themselves, are always afraid the first
renunciation will kill their child. Sooner or later they are going
to learn what life is. I know a little girl whose parents are multi-
millionaires, and who is going to be told some day soon that her two
older sisters aren't living abroad, as she thinks, but shut up for
life, within a few miles of her. What worse blow could life give to