nding the clothing
that had been torn while its wearer was making a futile attempt to
burn our house, but Jessie, knowing nothing of all this, and naturally
trustful, replied tranquilly:

"Certainly, we will, Mrs. Horton, if you think we can do it well
enough."

"Oh! anybody can do it well enough. If I had my way with it I'd put it
into the stove and have done with it," she announced frankly. "It's
seen its best days. But it appears to me that the longer Jake wears a
thing the better he likes it. What a figure he would have made in the
days of Methuselah, to be sure!"

She shook the coat out and laid it on the table. Jessie turned it
over, examining some gaping rents, evidently of recent make. Finally,

"Here's a button gone," she said. I felt my face grow white, while
Mrs. Horton explained placidly:

"Yes; and that's a pity, for the buttons are worth more than the coat.
They're quite curious, if you'll notice. I never saw any like them
before he got that coat. I think myself that that little brass leaf
stuck on to the front of them looks fussy on a man's coat buttons, but
Jake thinks they're so tasty. He was wonderfully put out when he found
that he'd lost one of them. The land sake, Leslie!" she broke off
suddenly as her glance fell on me. "Are you sick, child? Why, you are
as pale as a sheet! Isn't she, Jessie?"

Jessie, glancing up from the tattered coat, in alarm, confirmed this
statement, and they were both anxiously inquiring if I felt sick, and
how long since the attack came on, and if I hadn't better go right to
bed, when a diversion was created by the entrance of Joe. Joe had the
weekly county paper open in his hand; he could read a little in a
halting and uncertain fashion, but did not often trouble himself to do
it. "There must have been something of special interest to him in this
issue," I thought, and was not left long in doubt as to what it was.

"Heah we is!" he exclaimed, gleefully, extending the paper toward
Jessie; "heah's our third and las' notice ob provin' up!"

"Oh, is it there?" cried Jessie, seizing the paper, and running her
eye quickly over the item indicated by Joe's stubby black finger. Mrs.
Horton, brushing her husband's cherished coat from the chair where
Jessie had dropped it to the floor, seated herself, leaning forward in
anxious attention, and even Ralph, abandoning a furtive attempt to put
the cat in the water-pail, came and leaned against her knees, while
Jessie read aloud