cheerful as possible.

After a while Meg slipped quietly down into the bottom of the carriage,
and said she had a charming seat there on the baby's strong basket. She
did not say that she saw sister Hatty was weary, and wished to relieve
her. Little Meg was learning something of Christian kindness; so true is
it that where one child in a family is really trying to do right, all
the others soon catch something of her spirit.

It was a real treat to the children to be fairly outside the town, among
green fields and pleasant woods. Mrs. Lee had to keep her head bobbing
this way and that way, to see a flock of turkeys that made Meg laugh;
or a wild flower that pleased Hatty; or a "pretty moo cow" that Harry
thought quite extraordinary.

Marcus, meanwhile, was sitting up beside his father, and trying to talk
learnedly of "crops and fallow-land, good timber, and pretty fair
orchards." His father listened when he spoke, and quietly corrected his
mistakes, without showing him the least sign of contempt, or making him
feel his youth unnecessarily.

Mr. Lee saw that Marcus was bent upon appearing like a man, and he only
tried to make him a sensible, accurate little man, instead of putting
him down in a way likely to provoke him.

All Marcus' _mannish_ ways went off, suddenly, when the carriage drew up
at Mr. Sparrow's door. He leaped from his seat, and without waiting to
hand out the ladies and children, he gave a merry shout, and started off
for the brook at a pace that most men find neither easy nor comfortable.

Good farmer Sparrow was away in the orchard; but stout Mrs. Sparrow
helped Aunt Barbara out as well as if she had been a man; and by that
time Mr. Lee had tied the horses, and was ready to lift down the
children; Meg came out with a flying skip, and Hatty bounded down
cheerfully; but Harry was so sleepy, that his father had to lift him as
if he were a bag of meal.

The sight of the peach orchard was enough to fill the children with
astonishment,--the rich fruit looked so beautifully, hanging on the
bending boughs. Aunt Barbara was placed on a comfortable chair by the
window; Mrs. Lee took the baby,--and then Jane and the children went out
into the peach orchard, with Mrs. Sparrow.

The farmer's wife knew exactly to what trees to take them; and she
reached up and picked two of the largest peaches Hatty had ever seen,
and placed one in the little girls' hands. Away went Hatty back to the
house with her treasur