e a speck of a face
at the preacher, provided he used good grammar," that Mary finally
asked Mr. Parker to let her go.

He consented willingly, saying he hoped the house would be peaceable
for once. And now, it was hard telling which looked forward to the
next Sunday with the most impatience, Mary or Sal, the latter of whom
was anxious to see the fashions, as she fancied her wardrobe was
getting out of date. To Mary's happiness there was one drawback. A few
weeks before her mother's death she had given to Ella her straw hat,
which she had outgrown, and now the only bonnet she possessed was the
veritable blue one of which George Moreland had made fun, and which by
this time was nearly worn out. Mrs. Campbell, who tried to do right
and thought that she did, had noticed Mary's absence from church, and
once on speaking of the subject before Hannah, the latter suggested
that probably she had no bonnet, saying that the one which she wore
at her mother's funeral was borrowed Mrs. Campbell immediately looked
over her things, and selecting a straw which she herself had worn
three years before, she tied a black ribbon across it, and sent it as
a present to Mary.

The bonnet had been rather large for Mrs. Campbell, and was of course
a world too big for Mary, whose face looked bit, as Sal expressed it,
"like a yellow pippin stuck into the far end of a firkin." Miss
Grundy, however, said "it was plenty good enough for a pauper,"
reminding Mary that "beggars shouldn't be choosers."

"So it is good enough for paupers like you," returned Sal, "but people
who understand grammar always have a keen sense of the ridiculous."

Mary made no remark whatever, but she secretly wondered if Ella wore
such a hat. Still her desire to see her sister and to visit her
mother's grave, prevailed over all other feelings, and on Sunday
morning it was a very happy child which at about nine o'clock bounded
down the stairway, tidily dressed in a ten cent black lawn and a pair
of clean white pantalets.

There was another circumstance, too, aside from the prospect of seeing
Ella, which made her eyes sparkle until they were almost black. The
night before, in looking over the articles of dress which she would
need, she discovered that there was not a decent pair of stockings in
her wardrobe. Mrs. Grundy, to whom she mentioned the fact, replied
with a violent shoulder jerk, "For the land's sake! ain't you big
enough to go to meetin' barefoot, or did you thi