arde's eyes began to twinkle.
"Tell us!" she murmured, in a tone that would have persuaded an oyster
to open his shell. Then she stroked Miss Wealthy's arm gently, and was
silent, for she saw that speech was coming in due time.

Miss Wealthy looked at her teacup, and shook her head slowly, smiled,
and then sighed. "Mildred!" she said again. "My dear, your mother is now
forty years old, and I am seventy. When she came to visit me for the
first time, _I_ was forty years old, and she was ten. She had on, when
she arrived, a gray stuff frock, trimmed with many rows of narrow green
braid, and a little gray straw bonnet, with rows of quilled satin
ribbon, green and pink." The girls exchanged glances of horror and
amazement at the thought of this headgear, but made no sound. "I shall
never forget that bonnet," continued Miss Wealthy, pensively, "nor that
dress. In getting out of the carriage her skirt caught on the step, and
part of a row of braid was ripped; this made a loop, in which she caught
her foot, and tumbled headlong to the ground. I mended it in the
evening, after she was in bed, as it was the frock she was to wear every
morning. My dears, I mended that frock every day for a month. It is the
truth! the braid caught on everything,--on latches, on brambles, on
pump-handles, on posts, on chairs. There was always a loop of it
hanging, and the child was always putting her foot through it and
tumbling down. She never cried, though sometimes, when she fell
downstairs, she must have hurt herself. A very brave little girl she
was. At last I took all the braid off, and then things went a little
better."

Miss Wealthy paused to sip her coffee, and Hildegarde tried not to look
as if she begrudged her the sip. "Then," she went on, "Mildred was
always running away,--not intentionally, you understand, but just going
off and forgetting to come back. Once--dear, dear! it gives me a turn to
think of it!--she had been reading 'Neighbor Jackwood,' and was much
delighted with the idea of the heroine's hiding in the haystack to
escape her cruel pursuers. So she went out to the great haystack in the
barnyard, pulled out a quantity of hay, crept into the hole, and found
it so comfortable that she fell fast asleep. You may imagine, my dears,
what my feelings were when dinner-time came, and Mildred was not to be
found. The house was searched from garret to cellar. Martha and
I--Martha had just come to me then--went down to the wharf and thr