g her head so suddenly that if the scissors had been in the right
place, the points would surely have run into her. Fortunately, Miss
Abigail had stopped to see how the neck looked, and her scissors were
hanging by her side for a moment. "Why, of course, it is new. I went
with Aunt Emma to the store, and helped buy it my very own self, so I
know it is brand-new. Why, I should think you could tell it is new, it
is so pretty and bright, and there is n't one single teenty tonty
wrinkle in it."

"Yes, it is new to you," Miss Abigail answered solemnly. "But when you
think about the matter, Ruby Harper, you know that the sheep wore it
first, and you only have it second-hand, as you might say. Now, I
should think a little girl was very silly that thought herself better
than any one else, and let her thoughts rest on her clothes because she
wore a sheep's old suit of wool made up in a little different way.
Shall I tell you some verses that my mother made me learn when I was a
little girl, because I was proud of a new pelisse?"

"Yes 'm," said Ruby, meekly, taking a great deal of pleasure in the
thought that when Miss Abigail was a little girl she had been naughty
sometimes, and had had to learn verses as a punishment.

"'How proud we are, how fond to show
Our clothes, and call them rich and new,
When the poor sheep and silk-worm wore
That very clothing long before.

"'The tulip and the butterfly
Appear in gayer coats than I;
Let me be dressed fine as I will,
Flies, worms, and flowers exceed me still.'"

"I don't think worms look nicer than I do," said Ruby, not very
politely, when Miss Abigail had finished. "And I am very sorry for
you, Miss Abigail, if you had to learn such ugly verses. If you had
had a mamma like mine you would have had a better time, I think."

Miss Abigail looked severely over her brass-bowed spectacles at Ruby,
almost too shocked to speak for a moment.

"I am sure, I don't know what your mother would say, Ruby Harper, if
she heard you talking that way. I am sure she would think that you
were no credit to her bringing-up. You have a good mother, one of the
best mothers that ever lived, and your father is such a good man, too,
that I am sure I don't see where you get your pert ways from. I was a
happy child, because I was, in the main, a good child, and no one ever
had a better mother than mine; and I have tried to follow the way in
which I was brought up, if I do say i