supervise generally. Some one must
have done the mending and darning and laundry work, but I never saw any
of that.

Miss Sophie (the sisters said Suffy) was the knitter and her needles
were never still. Always a gray yarn stocking, and never any appearance
of the finished pair. Go when you would,--and the dear ladies were not
alone many hours,--the knitting was on and going on.

Miss Chrissy was the beauty. Ages ago there had been a tradition of a
lover, but nothing came of it. Perhaps they had all five lived out their
little romances--who could tell? A certain homage was paid to the
beauty. Her once brilliant auburn hair had paled to grayish sandy bands
that lay smooth under a cap which was always a little pretentious. Her
dark eyes and smiling lips made the soft white old face passing fair.
Miss Chrissy was the embroiderer and needle-work artist. Her treasures
of scallops and points and eyelets and wheels, all traced in ink upon
bits of letter-paper, were kept in a big square yellow box that was
bristling and bursting at all points.

This box was marvellous. There could never have been but one other in
the world; and that I had seen under my great-grandmother's bed, the bed
that had its dainty white frill, and its glazed calico curtains of gay
paradise birds. They were all of a piece and not easily forgotten. The
box had seen hard service among the "Pears." It was cross-stitched up
and down the corner's along the bottom and the top, and all around. It
never occurred to them to get a new one. Like their old Bible, its
places could be found.

I went, one frosty autumn day, to get a pattern for silk embroidery.
Stamping-blocks and tracing-wheels were unknown quantities to Miss
Chrissy. Her stumpy little pencil--and that, too, seemed always the
same--had to do the transfering. She liked a bit of harmless gossip,
dear soul; and the young girls of the town made a point of supplying the
lack of a newspaper with their busy tongues. So she knew at once who
I was.

"Oh," she said, with her kindly smile, "you are young Mrs. John: I
remember when your husband was a babe. I think I can find it;--yes, it
is down in this corner,"--rummaging in the yellow box; "here it is--the
pattern your aunt,--Mrs. John, selected for your husband's first short
dress. All the Hunt family were customers of ours. Mrs. John, she
they called Aunt Lou, was a great favorite. She was rich, and had no
children. Well, she came one day all in a flurr