er's
dignified old family carriage Martha sat with demure elation on the
back seat at her grandmother's side, wearing her white linen cape, and
a wide-brimmed, low-crowned hat of Neapolitan straw, with a blue
ribbon around the crown, and a narrow one attached to the front, the
end of which she held in her hand to pull the brim down to shade her
eyes as was the fashion for little girls of the day. She felt well
pleased with the hat, and held the ribbon daintily in her shapely
little hand.

At her feet was the basket of apples, and with her other hand she
guarded three small packages. Grandmother wore a gray, changeable
silk. The round waist fitted her plump figure smoothly, and the skirt
was full and flowing. Her bonnet was made of the same silk shirred on
rattan, and was not perched on the top of her head, but covered it
well and framed her sweet face with a full, white tulle ruching set
close under the brim.

Grandfather, up in front, drove Jack and Jill, who, he said, were
"feeling their oats." Betty did not wonder, for oats are sharp and
must prick their stomachs. She sat with grandfather,--he had promised
she should the night before,--and Jamie was tucked in between them. He
ought to have been in behind with grandmother, but his scream of
rebellion as he was lifted in brought instant yielding from Betty,
when grandfather interfered and took them both. But when Jamie
insisted on holding the reins, grandfather grew firm, and when screams
again began, his young majesty was lifted down and placed in the road
to remain until instant obedience was promised, after which he was
restored to the coveted place and away they went.

Betty's white linen cape blew out behind and her ribbons flew like
blue butterflies all about her hat. She forgot to hold down the brim,
as polite little girls did who knew how to wear their Sunday clothes.
She, too, held three small packages in her lap. For days, ever since
Peter Junior and Richard Kildene had taken tea with them in their new
uniforms, the little girls had patiently sewed to make the articles
which filled these packages.

Mary Ballard had planned them. In each was a needle-book filled with
needles large enough to be used by clumsy fingers, a pin ball, a
good-sized iron thimble, and a case of thread and yarn for mending,
buttons of various sizes, and a bit of beeswax, molded in Mary
Ballard's thimble, to wax their linen thread. All were neatly packed
in a case of bronzed leathe