and longed for a better one. She passed
away as gently and sweetly as a summer evening cloud or a dying
flower.

Our mistress said to her husband, "All Jane's clothes, except this
dear cloak, I have given to the poor. This I must keep myself; for
it was one of my wedding garments, and dear Jane has made it all the
dearer to me. I shall keep it to lend to friends who are caught here
in the rain; it shall be called the friend's cloak, and shall always
be kept in the closet in the hall, close at hand."

Now, I suppose every one knows of how much use such a cloak is in a
family. Never was a cloak more employed than I, and for all sorts of
things. I was used to play dumb orator. I was at every one's
service. I don't know how they ever did without me.

Don't be astonished that I did not wear out; my lining was strong,
and I tell you an old cloak has a charmed life; you cannot wear it
out; like charity, it suffereth long and is kind.

As my dear mistress's children grew up, I was treated very much as
you all have been; that is to say, with no respect at all. What a
different life was mine from that which I led with dear, gentle
cousin Jane. Peace be with her sweet spirit!

One prank which the boys played some years after Jane's death, I
must relate, and then I have done. The eldest, whose name was
Willie, took me, the evening before thanksgiving day, and, having
dressed himself up in some of the cook's dirty old clothes, and hung
a basket on his arm, put me over his shoulders, and I went begging
of all the neighbors for something to keep thanksgiving with. He
disguised his voice by putting cotton wool in his mouth, and I
wonder myself how I came to know him. Two or three boys of his
acquaintance went with him, all dressed as beggars; and a grand
frolic they had.

They went to one house where a man lived that made great pretensions
to religion and goodness, but who the boys strongly suspected was
not very compassionate to the poor.

"Please," said Willie, "give us a little flour and raisins for our
mother to make a thanksgiving pudding with to-morrow." His answer
was a slam of the door in his face.

"Let us go to Granny Horton's," said one of the boys; "she has not
gone to bed yet."

"O," said Willie, "you know she has nothing but what mother sends
her, or some of the neighbors. It would be a shame. I carried her a
pair of chickens this morning, and some flour and raisins; and it is
a shame to beg of her, she is s