she wanted to appear more captivating than usual. Poor girl! I know it
was very natural for her to do so. Indeed, I must confess to some little
weakness of the same description myself. We had drawn to us quite a new
set of visitors, and it was natural that I should endeavor to make our
house as attractive to them as possible. As all our previous earnings
had gone into a common purse, from which my mother made distribution
among us, so the new accession from the garden went into the same
repository. Jane was much more set up with this flourishing condition of
our finances than myself. In addition to beautiful new bonnets and very
gay shawls which we bought, she began to tease my mother for a silk
dress, an article which had never been seen in our house. But as the
latter prudently insisted on treating us with equal indulgence, and as I
thought my time for such finery had not come, I was unwilling to go to
that expense, so Jane was obliged to do without it. But I was now to
have a sewing-machine.

Time passed more pleasantly than I had ever known. It was a great
happiness to be able to devote an hour or two to reading every day, and
leisure prompted me to some little enterprises for the improvement of
the surroundings of the old homestead. It seemed to me the easiest thing
in the world to invest even the rudest exterior with true elegance, and
I found that the indulgence of a little taste in this way could be had
for a very small outlay. A silk dress, in my opinion, was not to be
compared with such an object.

I scarcely know how it happened, but, instead of the end of the
strawberry-season being the termination of Mr. Logan's visits, they
continued full as frequent as when there was really pressing work for
him to assist in. It could not have been because his curiosity to see
how my crop would turn out was still ungratified, as he knew all about
it, how much we had sold, and what money it produced. But he seemed to
have quite fallen in love with the garden; and, indeed, he one day
observed, that "there would ever be something in that garden to interest
him." Then in my little improvements about the house, in fixing up some
of our old trellises, in planting new vines and flowers, and in
transplanting trees and shrubs, he insisted on helping me nearly half
the week. He really performed far more work of this kind than Fred had
ever done, and appeared to be perfectly familiar with such matters.
Moreover, he approved so ge