er feet
with a new carpet, it looked to Jane Louder like fairyland.

"Oh, Tilly," she gasped; "oh, Tilly, ain't you moved?"

"No, nor we ain't going to move, ma--that's the surprise! I took the
money I'd saved for moving, for the new carpet and new dishes; and the
Lossings they papered and painted. I was SO 'fraid we couldn't get done
in time. Alma and all the boarders are coming in pretty soon to
welcome you, and they've all chipped in for a little banquet at Mrs.
Carleton's--why, mother, you're crying! Mother, you didn't really think
I'd move when it made you feel so bad? I know I'm set and stubborn,
and I didn't take it well when Mr. Lossing talked to me; but the more I
thought it over, the more I seemed to myself like that hateful Minnie.
Oh, mother, I ain't, am I? You shall do just exactly as you like all the
days of your life!"

AN ASSISTED PROVIDENCE

IT was the Christmas turkeys that should be held responsible. Every year
the Lossings give each head of a family in their employ, and each
lad helping to support his mother, a turkey at Christmastide. As the
business has grown, so has the number of turkeys, until it is now
well up in the hundreds, and requires a special contract. Harry, one
Christmas, some two years ago, bought the turkeys at so good a bargain
that he felt the natural reaction in an impulse to extravagance. In
the very flood-tide of the money-spending yearnings, he chanced to
pass Deacon Hurst's stables and to see two Saint Bernard puppies, of
elephantine size but of the tenderest age, gambolling on the sidewalk
before the office. Deacon Hurst, I should explain, is no more a deacon
than I am; he is a livery-stable keeper, very honest, a keen and solemn
sportsman, and withal of a staid demeanor and a habitual garb of black.
Now you know as well as I any reason for his nickname.

Deacon Hurst is fond of the dog as well as of that noble animal the
horse (he has three copies of "Black Beauty" in his stable, which would
do an incalculable amount of good if they were ever read!); and he
usually has half a dozen dogs of his own, with pedigrees long enough
for a poor gentlewoman in a New England village. He told Harry that the
Saint Bernards were grandsons of Sir Bevidere, the "finest dog of his
time in the world, sir;" that they were perfectly marked and very
large for their age (which Harry found it easy to believe of the young
giants), and that they were "ridiculous, sir, at the figger of two