l to make her anything but a
warmhearted, merry little creature."

This was sensible Helen's tribute of affection to the little, gay,
chattering butterfly, at that moment an occupant of Uncle Ephraim's
corn-colored wagon, and riding with that worthy toward home, throwing
kisses to every barefoot boy and girl she met, and screaming with
delight as the old familiar waymarks met her view.

"There are the oxen, the darling oxen, and that's Aunt Betsy, with her
dress pinned up as usual," she cried, when at last the wagon stopped
before the door; and the four women stepped hurriedly out to meet her,
almost smothering her with caresses, and then holding her off to see if
she had changed.

She was very stylish in her pretty traveling dress of gray, made under
Mrs. Woodhull's supervision, and nothing could be more becoming than her
jaunty hat, tied with ribbons of blue, while the dainty kids, bought to
match the dress, fitted her fat hands charmingly, and the little
high-heeled boots of soft prunella were faultless in their style. She
was very attractive in her personal appearance, and the mental verdict
of the four females regarding her intently was something as follows:
Mrs. Lennox detected unmistakable marks of the grand society she had
been mingling in, and was pleased accordingly; Aunt Hannah pronounced
her "the prettiest creeter she had ever seen;" Aunt Betsy decided that
her hoops were too big and her clothes too fine for a Barlow; while
Helen, who looked beyond dress, or style, or manner, straight into her
sister's soft, blue eyes, brimming with love and tears, decided that
Katy was not changed for the worse. Nor was she. Truthful, loving,
simple-hearted and full of playful life she had gone from home, and she
came back the same--never once thinking of the difference between the
farmhouse and Mrs. Woodhull's palace, or if she did, giving the
preference to the former.

"It was perfectly splendid to get home," she said, handing her gloves
to Helen, her sunshade to her mother, her satchel to Aunt Hannah, and
tossing her bonnet in the vicinity of the water pail--from which it was
saved by Aunt Betsy, who, remembering the ways of her favorite child,
put it carefully in the press, examining it closely first and wondering
how much it cost.

Deciding that "it was a good thumpin' price," she returned to the
kitchen, where Katy, dancing and curveting in circles, scarcely stood
still long enough for them to see that in spite