her, if you guessed and tried for a week!"

"Child, you are always having ideas, but they amount to nothing; you
have enough to do at home, without continually fretting your head
about what you cannot carry out."

"But, Bessie, this is _just splendid_, and it came to me all of a
sudden, and I'm sure as sure can be that it is a real _good_ idea. Now
wont you listen!"

"I suppose I must, if I want any peace; but I'm very tired, so if it
is like your latest--to catch fish and sell them in the town, or to
have your curls cut off and let some city hair-dresser pay you for
them--there will be no use to tell it to me."

"Tain't neither, Bessie dear, it's a real clever idea, and I know you
wont say 'no' to it. I was looking over some of the old picture papers
this morning, and I found a funny picture of a gentleman that had gone
fishing with, oh! the greatest lot of lines, and a fine rod, and a
basket swung at his back, and he looked ever so nice; but he hadn't
caught any thing and he was ashamed to go back to the city with an
empty basket; and then there was another picture where he was buying a
great string of fish from a bare-footed little country boy, that had
caught them all, and had only a rough old pole and an old line on it."

"So it _is_ the fishing idea, again," said Bessie, "but the present
variation does not improve on the last."

"No, it just ain't the fishing idea any more; it's this: you know all
the excursion parties that come up here, are coming all the time now;
well, the ladies all gather autumn leaves, lots and lots, handsful and
handsful of them. But they get tired of carrying so many after a
while, and by the time they get ready to go back to the cars, their
leaves are thrown away, and they are empty-handed. Now just listen! If
I go to work and pick out the _very_ prettiest leaves and do them up
in the _very_ sweetest bunches, and tie them so they are easy to
carry, and meet them when they are starting to go home, I'm _sure_
they will buy them, just like the gentleman did the fish from that
boy. Now, ain't that a _real good_ idea?"

"I believe there is something in it, Katie," answered the eldest
sister.

"I knew you would," cried Katie, joyously, "and may I try it?"

"If you will be very careful and not talk too much to the people you
know nothing of, I have no objections; it can do no harm, at all
events," and poor, tired Bessie sighed as she looked at her bright
young sister and thought of th