many years. Roxy's
dresses were short, and she wore straight, full "pantalets," that came
down to the tops of her shoes; for Mrs. Thomas Gildersleeve would have
thought it dreadful to allow her daughter to show the shape of her round
little legs, as all children do nowadays.

To finish up, Roxy wore a "tie-apron." This was simply a straight
breadth of "store calico," gathered upon a band with long ends, and tied
round her waist. Very important a little girl felt when allowed to leave
off the high apron and don the "tie-apron."

The first day she came to school with it on, her mates would stand one
side and look at her. "O, dear! you feel big--don't you?" they would say
to her. Maybe she would be obliged to "associate by herself" for a day
or so, until they became accustomed to the sight of the "tie-apron," or
until her own good nature got the better of their envy.

A "slat sun-bonnet," made of calico and pasteboard, completed Roxy's
costume on the summer morning of an eventful day in her life. It was
drawn just as far on as could be. It hid her face completely. She was
pacing along slowly, head bent down, to school. It was only eight
o'clock. Why was Roxy so early?

Well, this morning she preferred to be away from her mother. She was
"mad" at both her father and mother. "Stingy things!" she said, with a
great, angry sob.

About that time of every year, June, the children were forbidden to go
indiscriminately any more to the "maple sugar tub." The sweet store
would begin to lessen alarmingly by that time, and the indulgent mother
would begin to economize.

Every day since they "made sugar," Roxy had had the felicity of carrying
a great, brown, irregular, tempting chunk of maple sugar to school. She
had always divided with the girls generously. Her father did not often
give her pennies to buy cinnamon, candy, raisins, and cloves with; so
she used to "treat" with maple sugar in the summer, and with "but'nut
meats" in the winter, in return for the "store goodies" other girls had.

For a week now she had been prohibited the sugar-tub. This morning she
had asked her father for sixpence, to buy cinnamon. She had been
refused. "Stingy things!" she sobbed. "They think a little girl can live
without money just as well as not. O, I am so ashamed! I'd like to see
how mother would like to be invited to tea by the neighbors, and never
ask any of them to _her_ house. I guess she'd feel mean! But they think
because I am a littl