a frightful noise he always made blowing his nose,
seized his arm and whispered,--

"Hush, we're keeping the house still? I don't know as you know we've got
sick folks in the bedroom."

As she spoke there was a sudden sharp tinkle of the tea-bell--Mrs.
Lyman's bell--and Priscilla ran back at once to her duty.

"Where have you been?" said Mrs. Lyman, "and what did I hear you say
about George Washington?"

There was a fire in the lady's mild, blue eyes, which startled
Priscilla.

"You've been dozing off, ma'am," said she, soothingly. "I hadn't been
gone more'n a minute; but folks does get the _cur'usest_ notions,
dreaming like in the daytime."

"There, that will do," said the sweet-voiced lady, with a keen glance at
the nurse's red eyelids; "you mean well, but the plain truth is always
safest. You need not try to deceive me, and what is more, you can't do
it, Priscilla."

Then the nurse had to tell what she had heard, though it was too sad a
story to come to the sick woman's ears; for every man, woman, and child
in the United States loved the good George Washington, and must grieve
at the news of his death.

Mrs. Lyman said nothing, but lay quite still, looking out of the window
upon the white fields and the bare trees, till the baby began to cry,
and Siller came to take it away.

"Bless its little heart," said the nurse, holding it against her
tear-wet cheek; "it's born into this world in a poor time, so it is. No
wonder it feels bad. Open its eyes and look around. See, Pinky Posy,
this is a free country now, and has been for over twenty years; but it's
my private opinion it won't stay so long, for the Father of it is dead
and gone! O, Mrs. Lyman, what awful times there'll be before this child
grows up!"

"Don't borrow trouble, Priscilla. The world won't stop because one man
is dead. It is God's world, and it moves."

"But, Mrs. Lyman, do you think the United States is going to hold
together without General Washington?"

"Yes, to be sure I do; and my baby will find it a great deal better
place to live in than ever you or I have done; now you mark my words,
Priscilla."

All the people of Perseverance considered Mrs. Lyman a very wise woman,
and when she said, "Now you mark my words," it was as good as Elder
Lovejoy's amen at the end of a sermon. Priscilla wiped her eyes and
looked consoled. After what Mrs. Lyman had said, she felt perfectly easy
about the United States.

"Well, baby," said she, "who kn