her
overshoe and the size of his own foot.

Anna returned with Mrs. Bartlett's bonnet and cloak before the laugh at
the professor had subsided. She adjusted the cloak, tied Mrs.
Bartlett's bonnet strings with daughterly care and then turned to look
after the Squire's comfort, but he strode past her to the sleigh with
Marthy. Kate and the professor called on a cheery "Good-night," but
Mrs. Bartlett remained long enough to take the pretty, sorrowful face
in her hands and give it a sweet, motherly kiss.

When the jingling of the sleighbells died away across the snow, Hi
offered to read jokes to Anna from "Pickings from Puck," which he had
selected as a Christmas present from Kate, if she would consent to have
supper in the sitting-room, where it was warm and cosy. Anna began to
pop the corn, and Hi to read the jokes with more effort than he would
have expended on the sawing of a cord of wood.

He bit into an apple. An expression of perfect contentment illuminated
his countenance and in a voice husky with fruit began: "Oh, here is a
lovely one, Anna," and he declaimed, after the style usually employed
by students of the first reader.

"Weary Raggles: 'Say, Ragsy, w'y don't you ask 'em for something to eat
in dat house. Is you afraid of de dog?'"

"Ragsy Reagan: 'No, I a-i-n-t 'fraid of the dog, but me pants is frayed
of him.'"

"Ha, ha, ha--say, Anna, that's the funniest thing I ever did see. The
tramp wasn't frayed of him, but his pants was 'fraid of him. Gee,
ain't that a funny joke? And say, Anna, there's a picture with his
clothes all torn."

Hi was fairly convulsed; he read till the tears rolled down his cheeks.
"'Pickin's from Puck, the funniest book ever wrote.' Here's another,
Anna."

"'A p-o-o-r old man was sunstruck on Broadway this morning. His son
struck him for five dollars.'" Hi sat pondering over it for a full
minute, then he burst into a loud guffaw that continued so long and
uproariously that neither heard the continued rapping on the front door.

"Hi, some one is knocking on the front door. Do go and see who it is."

"O! let 'em knock, Anna; don't let's break up our party for strangers."

"Well, Hi, I'll have to go myself," and she laid down the corn-popper,
but the boy got up grumbling, lurched to the door and let in Lennox
Sanderson.

"'Tain't nobody at home, Mr. Sanderson," said Hi, inhospitably blocking
the way. Anna had crouched over the fire, as if to obliterate herself.