not know myself. The catechism may explain it, but I
was ever a dull scholar at reading and liked not study. Yes, thy face
must be bleached up, and I will begin this very night. They were good to
thee"--tentatively.

"I always felt afraid of Uncle James, though he never slapped me but
once, when I ran after the little chickens. They were such balls of
yellow down that I wanted to hug them. Afterward I asked Andrew what I
might do. He was very good to me, and he wished I had been his little
sister."

Patty laughed. "And did you wish it too?"

"I liked my own dear mother best. When I was out in the woods alone I
talked to her. Do you think she could hear in the sky? Aunt Lois said it
was wrong to wish her back again, or to wish for anything that God took
away. And so I ceased to wish for anybody, but learned to put on my
clothes and tie my strings and button, and do what Aunt Lois told me. I
can wipe cups and saucers and make my bed and sweep my room and weed in
the garden, and sew, and spin a little, but I cannot make very even
thread yet. And to knit--I have knit a pair of stockings, Patty. Aunt
Lois said those I brought were vanity."

"Stuff and nonsense! These Quakers would have the world go in hodden
gray, and clumsy shoes and stockings. Let us see thine. Oh, ridiculous!
We will give them to little Catty, the scrubwoman's child. Now I will
put thee in something decent."

She began to disrobe her and bathed her shoulders and arms in some
fragrant water.

"Oh, how delightful! It smells like roses," and she pressed the cloth to
her face.

"It is rose-water. What was in the garden at the Henrys'? Or is
everything wicked that does not grow to eat?"

"The roses were saved to make something to put in cake. But the lavender
was laid in the press and the drawers. It was very fragrant, but not
like the roses."

She combed out the child's hair until it fell in rings about her head.
Then she put on some fine, pretty garments and a slip of pink silk, cut
over from a petticoat of Madam Wetherill's. Her stockings were fine, cut
over as well, and her low shoes had little heels and buckles.

"Oh," she cried with sudden gayety that still had a pathos in it, "it
brings back mamma and so many things! Were they packed away, Patty, like
one's best clothes? It is as if I could pull them out of a trunk where
they had been shut up in the dark. And there were so many pretty
garments, and a picture of father that I used to wear s