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ften at quite a long distance from where it went under. NAN'S PEACE-OFFERING. BY KATE W. HAMILTON. "Just wish I was properer, and everything--so there!" said Nannie, sitting discontentedly down upon the green grass by the road-side, and surveying herself with a pair of very serious brown eyes. It was a forlorn little self, surely, with wet dress, muddy shoes, inky apron, and crumpled sun-bonnet. "Aunt S'mantha'll think I'm dreadful. She says I never have any forethought; but I have lots of after-thoughts, and I s'pose folks can't have both kinds. It don't do any good, either. Oh dear!" There was a whistled tune coming up the road. Tommy Grey was attached to it, but the whistle seemed much the older and more important of the two, and was first to reach the tree where Nannie was sitting. When Tommy caught up with it, he stopped in surprise. "Hello, Nan Verling! Is that you?" "I suppose so, but I wish it wasn't," answered Nannie, dolefully. "What for?" questioned Tommy, in still further astonishment. "'Cause I wish I was somebody else that wasn't all wrinkled and mussed up. I don't see how folks can keep nice and have good times, anyway," declared Nan, in a burst of confidence. "You see, I just helped sail boats in the brook, and I didn't know my dress was wet a bit till I came away; and then Lizzie Sykes tagged me, and course I had to tag her back again. I don't know what made her run right through the mud, where I couldn't catch her without getting my shoes all muddy. Should think she might have known better! My old ink-stand at school is always upsetting itself, and it had to spill on my clean white apron this afternoon. Then my sun-bonnet--" "Looks as if you'd hung it up in your pocket," suggested Tommy. "Well, I didn't; I only rolled it up for a rag-baby when we played keep house at recess. I s'pose it's bad for bonnets, but it made the beautifulest kind of a baby," said Nannie, a little ray of enthusiasm gleaming through her despondency. "But Aunt S'mantha doesn't 'preciate such things," she added, mournfully. "No," answered Tommy, sympathetically. "She'll scold, may be?" "P'r'aps so. May be she'll send me to bed without any supper." "Whew! That a'nt any fun, I tell you!" declared Tommy. "Why, a fellow just tumbles and tumbles, and gets hungrier and hungrier, and wonders what the folks have got for supper, and looks at the stars, and tries to say 'Hickory-dickory-dock' backward
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