surrounded him there, were treated further on separately, in rigid
sequence; but as if to make himself amends by a little play for so much
work, he had not been able to resist the temptation of grouping them all
together on one glowing and fascinating page. I framed my copy as
tastefully as I could, in a simple but harmonious _passe-partout_, and
sent it to Miss Mehitable, with Fanny's love. Fanny's gratitude was
touching; and as for me, I felt quite as if I had found a free ticket to
an indefinitely long private picture-gallery.

Fanny's satisfaction was still more complete after the fair, when Miss
Mehitable reported that the painting had brought in what we both thought
quite a handsome sum. "It was a dreadful shame," she added, "you hadn't
sent two of 'em; for at noon, while I was home, jest takin' a bite, my
niece, Letishy, from Noo York, had another grand nibble for that one
after 'twas purchased. Letishy said a kind o' poor, pale-lookin',
queer-lookin' lady, who she never saw before, in an elegint
camel's-hair,"--("Poor-lookin', in a camel's-hair shawl!" was my inward
ejaculation; "don't I wish, ma'am, I could catch you and 'Letishy' in
my composition class, once!")--"she come up to the table an' saw that,
an' seemed to feel quite taken aback to find she'd lost her chance at
it. Letishy showed her some elegint shell-vases with artificial roses;
but that wouldn't do. I told Letishy," continued Miss Mehitable, "that
she'd ought to ha' been smart an' taken down the lady's name; an' then I
could ha' got Kathryne to paint her another. But you mu't do it now,
Kathryne, an' put it up in the bookseller's winder; an' then, if she's
anybody that belongs hereabouts, she'll be likely to snap at it, an' the
money can go right into the orphans' fund all the same."

"Much obliged," thought I, "for the hint as to the bookseller's
shop-window; but I rather think that, if the money comes, the orphan's
fund that it ought to 'go right into' this time is Fanny's."

For my orphan's fund from my months of school-keeping, not ample when I
first came back, was smaller now. Fanny's illness was necessarily, in
some respects, an expensive one. I believed, indeed, and do believe,
that it was a gratification to Dr. Physick to lavish upon her, to the
utmost of his ability, everything that could do her good, as freely as
if she had been his own child or sister. But it could not be agreeable
to her, while we had a brother, to be a burden to a