which we thought pretty well for a little chap: 'To poor country folks
Who have n't any clothes, Rich folks, to relieve them, Send old lace
gowns and satin bows.'"

"I think that Will is going to be as nice a poet as Mr. Shakespeare,"
remarked Maud in a tone of serious conviction.

"He is already a Milton; but I don't believe he will ever be anything
but a poet in name," said Polly, working away while she talked.

"Did n't your mother ever let you wear the nice things that came?" asked
Maud.

"No, she thought it was n't the thing for a poor minister's girls to go
flourishing about in second-hand finery, so she did what I 'm doing now,
put away what would be useful and proper for us by and by, and let us
play with the shabby, silk bonnets and dirty, flounced gowns. Such fun
as we used to have up in our big garret! I remember one day we 'd been
playing have a ball, and were all rigged up, even the boys. Some new
neighbors came to call, and expressed a wish to see us, having been told
that we were pattern children. Mother called us, but we had paraded out
into the garden, after our ball, and were having a concert, as we sat
about on the cabbages for green satin seats, so we did n't hear the
call, and just as the company was going, a great noise arrested them
on the doorstep, and round the corner of the house rattled Ned in
full costume, wheeling Kitty in a barrow, while Jimmy, Will, and I ran
screaming after, looking like Bedlamites; for we were playing that Lady
Fitz Perkins had fainted, and was being borne home senseless in a cab.
I thought mother would kill herself with laughing; and you can imagine
what a fine impression the strangers received of the model children."

Maud was so tickled with this youthful prank that she unguardedly sat
down to laugh on the edge of an open trunk, immediately doubled up, fell
in, and was with difficulty extricated.

"People in the country have great deal nicer times than we do. I never
rode in a wheelbarrow, I never sat on cabbages, and I don't think it 's
fair," she said with an injured expression. "You need n't save any old
silk gowns for me; I don't mean to be a fine lady when I grow up, I 'm
going to be a farmer's wife, and make butter and cheese, and have ten
children, and raise pigs," she added in one enthusiastic burst.

"I do believe she will if she can find a farmer anywhere," said Fanny.

"Oh, I 'm going to have Will; I asked him and he said, 'All right.' He
's going t