Page:Keeping the Peace.pdf/126

 feet with bunches of grass the way I used to do. And the hands do look like hands, Dear Mother, don't they?"

They certainly did, and Mrs. Eaton said so. She was in a good humor. And even in her lay, false-seeing eyes, the picture had a certain charm.

"There weren't any halos in the original," continued Edward. "I put them in out of my own head. I wouldn't want people to look at this picture and think I'd just gone and drawn three ordinary ladies." He looked now up into his mother's face and said: "Dear Mother, it will be my birthday in February, and if you'll only give me a little box of paints I'll color their lovely robes for you, and the trees in the distance. Mary Mother ought to have a sky-blue dress, and Mary Cleophas would look nice in pale yellow. Mary Magdalene is drawn after she stopped being bad and had repented and been forgiven. So we could make her dress pink instead of red, don't you think? . . . I do wish you'd think over about the paints."

Mrs. Eaton did. She thought over about the paints then and there and concluded that Edward should have them. But she did not tell him this. She believed in discipline. She did not believe in children having things just when they wanted them. It was far, far better for them to wait.