sheet of morning dew over a neighbor's yard; she
had often believed she saw diamonds sparkle in that, though never in
her own. She had proved it otherwise too often. So Ellen, seeing
through a window a little girl of her own age in a red frock,
straightway believed it to be satin of the richest quality, and,
seeing through another window a tea-table spread, had no doubt that
the tin teapot was silver. A girl with a crown of yellow braids
pulled down a curtain, and she thought her as beautiful as an angel;
but of all this she said nothing at all, only walked soberly on,
holding fast to her mother's hand.

When they were half-way to the shops, a door of a white house close
to the road flew open and shut again with a bang, there was a scurry
and grating slide on the front walk, then the gate was thrown back,
and a boy dashed through with a wild whoop, just escaping contact
with Mrs. Zelotes Brewster. "You'd better be careful," said she,
sharply. "It ain't the thing for boys to come tearin' out of yards
in the evenin' without seein' where they are goin'."

The boy cast an abashed glance at her. The street-lamp shone full on
his face, which was round and reddened by the frosty winds, with an
aimlessly grinning mouth of uncertain youth, and black eyes with a
bold and cheerful outlook on the unknown. He was only ten, but he
was large for his age. Ellen, when he looked from her grandmother
back at her, thought him almost a man, and then she saw that he was
the boy who had brought the chestnuts to her the night when she had
returned from her runaway excursion. The boy recognized her at the
same moment, and his mouth seemed to gape wider, and a moist red
overspread his face down to his swathing woollen scarf. Then he gave
another whoop significant of the extreme of nervous abashedness and
the incipient defiance of his masculine estate, there was a flourish
of heels, followed by a swift glimmering slide of steel, and he was
off trailing his sled.

"That's that Joy boy that brought Ellen the chestnuts that time,"
Fanny said. "Do you remember him, Ellen?"

"Yes, ma'am," replied Ellen. The look of the boy in her face had
bewildered and confused her, without her knowing the why of it. It
was as if she had spelled a word in her reading-book whose meaning
she could not grasp.

"I don't care who he is," said Mrs. Zelotes, "he 'ain't no business
racin' out of gates that way, and his folks hadn't ought to let a
boy no older than th