ry's expression of perfect
hopelessness as she held up the underwaist. Aunt Barbara's favorite
maxim that there was "nothing so inconvenient as disorder" seemed to
have deeper reason and wisdom than ever. Betty considered the propriety
of throwing away all her subterfuges of pins, so that a proper stitch
must be inevitably taken when it was needed. Pins in underclothes are
not always comfortable, but our heroine was apt to be in a hurry, and to
suffer the consequences in more ways than one. She made some brave
resolutions now, and promised herself to look over her belongings, and
to mend all that could be mended and throw away the remainder rags that
very day after dinner. Betty was fond of making good resolutions, and
it seemed to help her much about keeping them if she wrote them down.
She had learned lately from Aunt Barbara, who complained of forgetting
things over night, to make little lists of things to be done, and it
appeared a good deal easier to mark off the items on the list one by
one, than to carry them in one's mind and wonder what should be done
next. Our friend liked to make notes about life in general and her own
responsibilities, and had many serious thoughts now that she was growing
older.

She made her lead pencil as pointed as possible with a knife newly
sharpened by Jonathan, and wrote at the end of her slip of paper, which
had come out much crumpled from her pocket: "Look over my clothes and
every one of my stockings, and put them in as good order as possible."
Then she smoothed out another larger piece of paper on her knee and read
it. One day she had copied some scattered sentences from a book, and
prefaced them with some things that her father often had said: "Learn
the right way to do things. Do everything that you can for yourself. Try
to make yourself fit to live with other people. Try to avoid making
other people wait upon you. Remember that every person stands in a
different place from every other and so sees life from a different point
of view. Remember that nobody likes to be proved in the wrong, and be
careful in what manner you say things to people that they do not wish to
hear."

Betty read slowly with great approval at first, but the end seemed
disturbing. "That's just what Aunt Mary likes!" she reflected, with
suddenly rising wrath. "She says things over twice, for fear I don't
hear them the first time. I wish she would let me alone!" but Betty's
conscience smote her at this point