it myself, and gave
away all my pieces except the pretty sea-moss pattern, which I was not
willing to see patched up with common calico. It was evident that I
should never conquer fate with my needle.

Among other domestic traditions of the old times was the saying that
every girl must have a pillow-case full of stockings of her own
knitting before she was married. Here was another mountain before me,
for I took it for granted that marrying was inevitable--one of the
things that everybody must do, like learning to read, or going to
meeting.

I began to knit my own stockings when I ways six or seven years old,
and kept on, until home-made stockings went out of fashion. The
pillow-case full, however, was never attempted, any more than the
patchwork quilt. I heard somebody say one day that there must always be
one "old maid" in every family of girls, and I accepted the prophecy of
some of my elders, that I was to be that one. I was rather glad to know
that freedom of choice in the matter was possible.

One day, when we younger ones were hanging about my golden-haired and
golden-hearted sister Emilie, teasing her with wondering questions
about our future, she announced to us (she had reached the mature age
of fifteen years) that she intended to be an old maid, and that we
might all come and live with her. Some one listening reproved her, but
she said, "Why, if they fit themselves to be good, helpful, cheerful
old maids, they will certainly be better wives, if they ever are
married," and that maxim I laid by in my memory for future
contingencies, for I believed in every word she ever uttered. She
herself, however, did not carry out her girlish intention. "Her
children arise up and call her blessed; her husband also; and he
praiseth her." But the little sisters she used to fondle as her
"babies" have never allowed their own years nor her changed relations
to cancel their claim upon her motherly sympathies.

I regard it as a great privilege to have been one of a large family,
and nearly the youngest. We had strong family resemblances, and yet no
two seemed at all alike. It was like rehearsing in a small world each
our own part in the great one awaiting us. If we little ones
occasionally had some severe snubbing mixed with the petting and
praising and loving, that was wholesome for us, and not at all to be
regretted.

Almost every one of my sisters had some distinctive aptitude with her
fingers. One worked exquisite lac