fact, Jan found, on reaching home,
that that undesirable consummation was not unlikely to occur. As you
will find also, if you will make an evening call upon Mrs. Duff.

Mrs. Duff stood behind her counter, sorting silks. Not rich piece silks
that are made into gowns; Mrs. Duff's shop did not aspire to that
luxurious class of goods; but humble skeins of mixed sewing-silks, that
were kept tied up in a piece of wash-leather. Mrs. Duff's head and a
customer's head were brought together over the bundle, endeavouring to
fix upon a skein of a particular shade, by the help of the one
gas-burner which flared away overhead.

"Drat the silk!" said Mrs. Duff at length. "One can't tell which is
which, by candle-light. The green looks blue, and the blue looks green.
Look at them two skeins, Polly; which _is_ the green?"

Miss Polly Dawson, a showy damsel with black hair and a cherry-coloured
net at the back of it--one of the family that Roy was pleased to term
the ill-doing Dawsons, took the two skeins in her hand.

"Blest if I can tell!" was her answer. "It's for doing up mother's green
silk bonnet, so it won't do to take blue. You be more used to it nor me,
Mrs. Duff."

"My eyes never was good for sorting silks by this light," responded Mrs.
Duff. "I'll tell you what, Polly; you shall take 'em both. Your mother
must take the responsibility of fixing on one herself; or let her keep
'em till the morning and choose it then. She should have sent by
daylight. You can bring back the skein you don't use to-morrow; but mind
you keep it clean."

"Wrap 'em up," curtly returned Miss Polly Dawson.

Mrs. Duff was proceeding to do so, when some tall thin form, bearing a
large bundle, entered the shop in a fluster. It was Mrs. Peckaby. She
sat herself down on the only stool the shop contained, and let the
bundle slip to the floor.

"Give a body leave to rest a bit, Mother Duff! I be turned a'most inside
out."

"What's the matter?" asked Mrs. Duff, while Polly Dawson surveyed her
with a stare.

"There's a white cow in the pound. I can't tell ye the turn it give me,
coming sudden upon it. I thought nothing less, at first glance, but it
was the white quadruple."

"What! hasn't that there white donkey come yet?" demanded Polly Dawson;
who, in conjunction with sundry others of her age and sex in the
village, was not sparing of her free remarks to Mrs. Peckaby on the
subject, thereby aggravating that lady considerably.

"You hold your