ey sailed.

_Miss Debby's Neighbors_

There is a class of elderly New England women which is fast dying
out:--those good souls who have sprung from a soil full of the true New
England instincts; who were used to the old-fashioned ways, and whose
minds were stored with quaint country lore and tradition. The fashions
of the newer generations do not reach them; they are quite unconscious
of the western spirit and enterprise, and belong to the old days, and to
a fast-disappearing order of things.

But a shrewder person does not exist than the spokeswoman of the
following reminiscences, whose simple history can be quickly told, since
she spent her early life on a lonely farm, leaving it only once for any
length of time,--one winter when she learned her trade of tailoress. She
afterward sewed for her neighbors, and enjoyed a famous reputation for
her skill; but year by year, as she grew older, there was less to do,
and at last, to use her own expression, "Everybody got into the way of
buying cheap, ready-made-up clothes, just to save 'em a little trouble,"
and she found herself out of business, or nearly so. After her mother's
death, and that of her favorite younger brother Jonas, she left the farm
and came to a little house in the village, where she lived most
comfortably the rest of her life, having a small property which she used
most sensibly. She was always ready to render any special service with
her needle, and was a most welcome guest in any household, and a most
efficient helper. To be in the same room with her for a while was sure
to be profitable, and as she grew older she was delighted to recall the
people and events of her earlier life, always filling her descriptions
with wise reflections and much quaint humor. She always insisted, not
without truth, that the railroads were making everybody look and act of
a piece, and that the young folks were more alike than people of her own
day. It is impossible to give the delightfulness of her talk in any
written words, as well as many of its peculiarities, for her way of
going round Robin Hood's barn between the beginning of her story and its
end can hardly be followed at all, and certainly not in her own dear
loitering footsteps.

On an idle day her most devoted listener thought there was nothing
better worth doing than to watch this good soul at work. A book was held
open for the looks of the thing, but presently it was allowed to flutter
its leaves and clos