bonnet-strings fluttered, and a lock of gray hair was blown out of place
and straggled across the placid brow.

"We were tellin' each othah about some of the worst things we evah did
in ou' lives, Mrs. Brewster," said Lloyd. "Won't you tell us about some
of the things you did when you were a naughty little girl?"

Mrs. Brewster laughed. Few people would have remembered that she had
ever been a little girl, and only the Little Colonel would have dared to
intimate that she had been a naughty one, for she was one of those
dignified persons who look as if they had always been proper and grown
up.

"That is a long time ago to look back to, dear," she began. "I was very
strictly brought up, and the training of my conscience began so early
that I was always a good child in the main, I think. I was more timid
than my brothers and sisters, which may account for some of my goodness,
and for the most daring deed I ever did, I was punished so severely that
it had a restraining effect on me ever after."

"What was that?" asked Lloyd, with such an air of interest, that Mrs.
Brewster, looking around on the listening faces, was beguiled into
telling it.

"It was when we lived in a little New England village, and I was about
eight years old. Although I was a very quiet child, I dearly loved
company, and always felt a delicious thrill of excitement when I heard
that the Dorcas Sewing Society was to be entertained at our house, or
that some one was coming to tea. Mother thought that growing children
should eat only the simplest, most wholesome dishes, so usually we had
very frugal fare. But on state occasions a great many tempting goodies
were set out. I remember that we always had spiced buns and tarts and a
certain kind of plum marmalade that mother had great skill in making. It
was highly praised by every one. But it was not alone for these things
that I was in a state of complete happiness from the time the company
arrived until they departed. I enjoyed listening to every word that was
said. An hour before the guests began to arrive I would station myself
at the window, to watch for them. I loved to see the ladies stepping
primly down the garden path in their best gowns, between the stiff
borders of box and privet, stopping to admire mother's hollyhocks or
laburnum bushes.

"Children were seen and not heard in those days and as soon as they had
been ushered into the guest chamber, where they laid aside their wraps,
and had se