the Sister. "I've been sounding them. Put on the thing
and wear it. Don't be so silly as to throw away all that money. You
can't wear it more than two years."

"Two years!" said the Boy, turning red.

"People will get accustomed to you by that time," urged the Father.

"It is very extraordinary," said all the family with a wondering air,
and then they all fell to reading for a half-hour with their books
upside down.

The Boy decided to wear the suit, and follow the conditions and wrote so
to his Uncle.

His first appearance in the street in his new attire was greeted by a
lady who stopped short and exclaimed, "Good gracious! what singular
parents that child must have, and he actually looks proud of his dress
too!"

"It's my caste of countenance," thought the Boy; but as he was quite
unaccustomed to have it connected with his dress, and disgusted, beside,
that he should be thought vulgar, he tried to alter the caste, though he
turned very red when people looked at him. For some time it went on this
same way; he caught glances and overheard remarks such as he had once
applied to other people but which he never dreamed could enter people's
minds in regard to him. Even his own family did not spare him. A dozen
times he was on the point of casting off the glittering suit and
renouncing the money it represented, but just as many times he thought
he would try it yet another day. But to do this he learned he must be
quiet and prefer the background and silence to the attention he was once
so eager to receive.

One day he sat in the sunlight with a book trying to read and wishing
very much to run outdoors and play with the rest of the boys, but kept
back by an uncomfortable recollection of a great deal of badgering. The
Sharp-eyed Sister was reading in the same room too, and every once in a
while she would blink, and wink, and frown, and look about; finally she
looked straight at him.

"You tiresome object," she cried, "do get out of the sun. I wondered
what it was dazzling my eyes like the reflection of seven dozen looking
glasses, and there it is your odious buttons."

The Boy got out of the sun without a reply; feeling a little restless he
moved now and then.

"Dear me," said the Mother starting from her nap with a jerk, "you do
jingle so."

After this the Boy concluded to go out. When his playfellows saw him
they all set up a shout but he said to himself, "If I don't think about
myself perhaps they won't think