epsakes," said grandma. "Find something you want to
hear about."

Cricket lifted a string of oddly carved beads.

"This, grandma. Isn't it funny? Has it an interesting story?"

Grandma took the beads in her hands, thoughtfully.

"It's an old keepsake, to be sure, and I used to be very fond of it when
I was a girl, and I wore it a good deal, but I don't know that there is
any story connected with it. But I'll tell you how I got it. It taught
me a bit of a lesson. I'll tell you the story, and you can guess the
lesson for yourself, if you can.

"You know I lived in Boston when I was a girl. I went to a private
school there, of, perhaps, twenty girls. It was kept by Miss Sarah and
Miss Abbie Cartwright. We all loved Miss Sarah, but none of us liked
Miss Abbie, and I don't wonder at it when I think how little she
understood girls.

"We used to recite seated in a semi-circle around the teacher, and all
whispering was strictly forbidden during the recitation. One day--but I
must stop here, and tell you that we all wore white stockings and low
shoes then. We never had any high shoes at all. Our white stockings must
always be fresh and clean, of course, and I always put on a clean pair
every day. A soiled stocking would have made us feel simply disgraced.
Coloured stockings were perfectly unknown as far as I remember, and I
should have felt dreadfully mortified to wear anything but white."

"Oh, I know! like Ellen in the 'Wide, Wide World,'" broke in Cricket.
"Don't you remember her horrid aunt, who dyed all her white stockings
gray, and she felt so badly? I never knew why. Wouldn't I feel _silly_
in white stockings now!"

"Yes, but if everybody wore them, it would be different. There was one
girl, Phoebe Dawson, in my class, who was a very untidy girl. She
always had hooks off her dress, or a hook and eye put together that did
not mate, or her dress was broken from its gathers. _Her_ stockings were
always grimy around the ankles. Ours were always smoothly gartered up,
but hers wrinkled down over her shoes."

"Yes," nodded Cricket, "Sort of mousquetaire stockings."

Grandma laughed. "That exactly describes it. I know now there was some
excuse for her getting her stockings so dirty, for she had a much longer
walk to school than any of us did, as she came from Charlestown,--over a
long, dusty road.

"So, one day, as I was saying, the recitation was just over, and Miss
Abbie was talking about something just to fill up