lighter than was consistent with the eternal fitness of things. We
had only to follow a well-made road the next day to Sidon; and there, as
we sat at a table spread with a clean, white cloth, on which were
plates, and knives and forks, and cups and saucers, and spoons, we
concluded that our roughing it in Palestine had at least convinced us
that civilized man makes himself want many convenient if not wholly
necessary things.

CHARLES WOOD.

* * * * *

THE EYE OF A NEEDLE.

"I don't know which way to turn to get the fall tailorin' done, now
Mirandy Daggett's been and had money left to her," said, in an aggrieved
tone, the buxom mistress of the Wei by poor-farm, as she briskly hung
festoons of pumpkins, garners of the yellowest of the summer sunshine,
along the beams of the great wood-shed chamber. "The widow Pingree, from
over Sharon way, she's so wasteful, I declare it makes my blood run cold
to see her cuttin' and slashin' into good cloth; and Emerline Johnson
she's so scantin', the menfolks all looks like scarecrows, with their
legs and arms a-stickin' out. _Mirandy's_ got faculty."

"Seems if 'twa'n't no more'n yesterday that I was carryin' victuals to
keep that child from starvin', and now she's an heiress, and here I be.
Well, the Lord's ways ain't ourn."

A little old woman, twisted all awry by a paralytic shock, who was
feebly assisting the poor-mistress, uttered these reflections in a
high-keyed, quavering voice. She was called old lady Peaseley, and a
halo of aristocracy encircled her, although she had been in the
poor-house thirty years, for her grandfather had been the first minister
of Welby.

"I declare, if there ain't Mirandy a-comin' up the lane this blessed
minute! Talk about angels, you know. Seems if she looked kinder peaked
and meachin', though most gen'ally as pert's a lizard. If things was as
they used to be, I should jest sing out to her to come right up here;
but, bein' she's such an heiress, I s'pose I'd better go down and open
the front door."

But before the brisk poor-mistress could reach the front door her
visitor had entered, the kitchen.

"I've been kind of low-spirited, and, thinks I, if there is a place
where I could get chippered up it's down to the poor-house, where it's
always so lively and sociable; and if Mis' Bemis ain't a-goin' to send
for me I'll jest go over and find out the reason why."

The speaker, who had seated herself in