to town before her tender palm was quite healed from the cruel blows;
and she was the first to see him. But the meeting happened in such a
queer way, that I shall have to tell you about it.

CHAPTER XII.

THE LITTLE DIPPER.

"Well, mother," said Squire Lyman, one afternoon, "the new teacher has
got along, and by the looks of him I don't believe he is the man to
abuse our little girl. Patty, dear, open the cellar door for papa."

Mr. Lyman's arms were full of hemlock, which he had brought home from
the woods. Betsy liked it for brooms, and he and his hired men always
got quantities of it when they were hauling the winter's wood from the
wood lot.

"Yes, I know the Starbird family very well," replied Mrs. Lyman; "that
is, I used to know this young man's mother, and I presume he is quite
different from Mr. Purple."

Mrs. Lyman was sitting before the kitchen fire with the great family
Bible in her lap; but, instead of reading it, she was winding round it
some white soft wicking.

"Why, mamma, mamma, what are you doing?" exclaimed Patty. "How can papa
read to-night with the Bible all tied up?"

"I shan't hurt the good book, my dear." And as Mrs. Lyman spoke she cut
the wicking in two with the shears, and as it fell apart it let out the
precious volume just as good as ever. Then she took from the table some
slender sticks, and put on each stick twelve pieces of wicking, giving
each piece a little twist with her fingers.

"O, now I know," said Moses, who was watching too; "you're a goin' to
make candles--going to dip those strings in a kettle of something hot.
Yes, I know."

"Yes, and there's the kettle," said Patty.

Mrs. Lyman was very late this year about her candles. She dipped them
once a year, and always in the afternoon and evening, because there was
so much, so very much going on in that kitchen in the morning.

"Now, please, mamma," said Patty, "let me help."

Mrs. Lyman tipped two chairs face downward towards the floor,--"Like
folks trying to creep," said Patty,--and laid two long sticks from one
chair to the other, making a very good fence. Next she set the candle
rods across the fence, more than a hundred of them in straight rows.

"James," called she, going to the door; and while James was coming she
laid a large plank on the floor right under the candle rods.

"That's to catch the drippings," said the learned Moses; and he was
right.

Squire Lyman and James came in and lifted the heavy