returned the old lady, shaking her head.

"But you see," Janice hastened to say, with pride, "my father is that
kind of a man. The other folks expected him to take hold of the business
and straighten it out. He--he's always doing such things, you know."

"I see," agreed Mrs. Scattergood. "He's one o' these 'up an' comin' sort
o' men. And you're his darter!" and she cackled a little, shrill laugh.
"I kin see _that_. You're one o' these new-fashioned gals, all right."

"I hope I'm like Daddy," said Janice, quietly. "Everybody loves
Daddy--everybody depends on him to go ahead and _do_ things. I hope
Uncle Jason will be like him."

With the light breeze fluttering the little crinkles of hair between her
hat and her brow, and an expression of bright expectancy upon her face,
Janice was worth looking at a second time. So Mrs. Scattergood thought,
as she glanced up now and again from her knitting.

"Poketown--Poketown," the girl murmured to herself, trying to spy out
the land ahead as the _Constance Colfax_ floundered on. "Oh! I hope
Daddy's remembrance of it is all wrong now. I hope it will belie its
name."

"What's that, child?" put in the sharp voice of her neighbor.

"Why--why--if it _is_ poky I know I shall just die of homesickness for
Greensboro," confessed Janice. "How could the early settlers of these
'New Hampshire Grants' ever _dare_ give such a homely name to a
village?"

"Pshaw!" ejaculated Mrs. Scattergood. "What's a name? Prob'bly some man
named Poke settled there fust. Or pokeberries grew mighty common there.
People weren't so fanciful about names in them days. Why! my son-in-law
lives right now in a place in York State called 'Skunk's Hollow' and
the city folks that's movin' in there is tryin' to git the post office
to change the name to 'Posy Bloom.' No 'countin' for tastes in names. My
poor mother called _me_ Mahala Ann--an' me too leetle to fight back. But
I made up my mind when I was a mighty leetle gal that if ever I had a
baby I'd call it sumthin' pretty. An' I done the right thing by all my
children.

"Now here's 'Rill," pursued Mrs. Scattergood, waxing communicative. "Her
full name's Amarilla--Amarilla Scattergood. Don't you think that's purty
yourself, now?"

Janice politely agreed. But she quickly swung the conversation back to
Poketown.

"I suppose, if mills had been built there, or the summer boarders had
discovered Poketown, its name would have been changed, too. And you
haven't been