young girl, Edith and Cynthia following her. She closed
the door behind them, and seating herself in the rocking-chair, looked
at them solemnly.

"Do you remark anything different about my appearance?"

"Why, of course, Aunt Betsey!" exclaimed Cynthia; "your hair!"

"Well, I want to know! Cynthy, you are very smart. You get it from your
great-grandmother Trinkett, for whom you were named. Well, what do you
think of it?"

Edith had hastened to the closet, and was opening drawers and removing
garments from the hooks in apparently a sudden desire for neatness. In
reality she was convulsed with laughter.

Cynthia controlled herself, and replied, with gravity, "Did it grow
there?"

Miss Betsey rocked with satisfaction, her hands folded in her velveteen
lap.

"I knew it was a success. No one would ever know it, would they? My
dears, I bought it to-day in Boston town. The woman told me it looked
real natural. I don't know as I like the idea exactly of wearing other
people's hair, but one has to keep up with the times, and mine was
getting very scant. Silas said to me the other night, said he, 'Betsey,
strikes me your hair isn't as thick as it used to be.' That set me
thinking, and I remember I'd heard tell of these frontispieces, and I
then and there made up some business I'd have to come to Boston town
about, and here I am. I bought two while I was about it. The woman said
it was a good plan, in case one got lost or rumpled, and here it is in
this box. Just lay it away carefully for me, Cynthy, my dear."

The old lady's thin and grayish locks had been replaced by a false front
of smooth brown, with puffs at the side, and a nice white part of most
unnatural straightness down the middle.

"You see, I like to please Silas," she continued. "I'll tell you again,
as I've told you before, girls, Silas Green and I we've been keeping
steady company now these forty years. But I can't give up the view from
my sitting-room windows to go and live at his house on the other hill,
and he can't give up the view from his best-room windows to come and
live at my house. We've tried and tried, and we can't either of us give
up. And so he just comes every Sunday night to see me, as he's done
these forty years, and I guess it'll go on a while longer."

They were interrupted by the sound of the tea bell.

Miss Betsey hastily settled her cap over the new front, and they all
went down stairs, Cynthia pinching Edith to express her feeling