weak child as to how the money might be most profitably employed, until at length she relieved herself of all moral obligation by putting it into the mission-box. It is not possible for a real little girl to sympathize with such a situation. She may give away her pennies impulsively, as Charles Lamb gave away his plum-cake,—to his lasting regret and remorse,—but she does not start out by worrying over her serious responsibility as a capitalist.
The joyless literature provided for the children of Puritanism in the New World was little less lugubrious than that which a century later, in many a well-tended English nursery, made the art of reading a thoroughly undesirable accomplishment. Happy the boy who could escape into the air and sunshine with Robinson Crusoe. Happy the girl who found a constant friend in Miss Edge worth's little Rosamond. For always on the book-shelf sat, sombre and implacable, the unsmiling "Fairchild Family," ready to hurl texts at everybody's head, and to prove at a moment's notice the utter depravity of the youthful heart. It is inconceivable that such a book should have
