icial state. She never felt as if she owned
it,--only that she was the keeper of a sacred trust; and Mattie, in
asking for it, knew that she demanded no more than her due, as a citizen
should. It was an impersonal matter between her and the bonnet; and
though she should wear it on a secular errand, the veil did not signify.
She knew everybody else knew whose bonnet it was; and that if anybody
supposed she had met with a loss, they had only to ask, and she to
answer. So, in the consciousness of an armor calculated to meet the
world, she skillfully brought her congress boots into Mary's kitchen,
and sat down, her worn little hands clasped under the shawl.

"You've just got home," said she. "I s'pose you ain't heard what's
happened to Johnnie?"

Mary rose, a hand upon her chair.

"No! no! He don't want no nussin'. You set down. I can't talk so--ready
to jump an' run. My! how good that tea does smell!"

Mary brought a cup, and placed it at her hand, with the deft manner of
those who have learned to serve. Mattie sugared it, and tasted, and
sugared again.

"My! how good that is!" she repeated. "You don't steep it to rags, as
some folks do. I have to, we're so nigh the wind. Well, you hadn't been
gone long before Johnnie had a kind of a fall. 'T wa'n't much of a one,
neither,--down the ledge. I dunno how he done it--he climbs like a
cat--seems as if the Old Boy was in it--but half his body he can't move.
Palsy, I s'pose; numb, not shakin', like Adam's."

Mary listened gravely, her hands on her knees.

"How long's he been so?"

"Nigh on to five weeks."

"Had the doctor?"

"Yes, we called in that herb-man over to Saltash, an' he says there
ain't no chance for him. He's goin' to be like Adam, only wuss. An'
I've been down to the Poor Farm, to tell 'em they've got to take him
in." Her little hands worked; her eager eyes ate their way into the
heart. Mary could see exactly how she had had her way with the
selectmen. "I told 'em they'd got to," she repeated. "He ain't got no
money, an' we ain't got nuthin', an' have two paraletics on my hands I
can't. So they told me they'd give me word to-day; an' I'm goin' down
to settle it. I'm in hopes they'll bring me back, an' take him along
down."

"Yes," answered Mary gravely. "Yes."

"Well, now I've come to the beginnin' o' my story." Mattie took that
last delicious sip of tea at the bottom of the cup. "He's layin' in bed,
an' Adam's settin' by the stove; an' I wanted to kn