©raeie’s [iission.

stood a hundred in spelling to-night,” said little Gracie Elwood, joy-
ously, as she ran lightly into the sitting-room after school. ‘But oh,
mamma! Carrie Olsen wrote every one of her words at her seat, all
right you know, and then just traced them over in the class. I didw? -
think she'd do such a thing as ¢hat, did you? The teacher knew it in
a minute. But I don’t believe she'll ever doit again. The teacher talked to
her, and she felt very badly about it.”

Mrs. Elwood’s mother-heart was stirred immediately. She knew Carrie
Olsen to be a timid, quiet, sensitive little foreigner, not quite ‘‘a stranger ina
strange land,” and yet not quite at home among her American playmates. She
knew, too, that Carrie was not naturally given to deception, and she wondered
—well, she wondered if children’s faults were ever dealt with quite as carefully
as they ought to be.

“Oh, lam so sorry!” she said to Gracie. ‘Doesn't Carrie study?”

“Yes, she studies. But shehasn’t any book. She has to take mine before
recess.”

“Can you not help her? Can you not hear her spell the words at noon or
recess?”

“IT don’t believe I could. She would want to play.”

“But why not play school and all spell your lessons?”

“Oh, the girls wouldn’t. They'd spell wrong just for fun.”

“If you said to them, ‘Please let us spell them right so as to learn them,’
wouldn’t they?”

“T’d rather let some oneelse be teacher, mamma; I teach so much,” said
Gracie, still shrinking from this which her mother wished her to do.

Mrs. Elwood divined that she did not like to assume any superiority over
her little mates, and respected the instinct. But she knew, too, that her wise,
womanly, warm-hearted little daughter was a favorite in school, and had much
power to wound or gladden those: about her; a power that carried with it re-
sponsibility for both mother and child.

“At any rate, Gracie, you will be good to her? She needs some one to be
good to her now. You will play with her, and help ‘her all you can?” .

“Oh, yes, mamma. I always do.”

And mamma knew that she always meant to be kind and loving toward all,
though doubtless she sometimes failed.