kee who has enjoyed the advantages of education and society. He had
plenty of common sense, acute business faculties, and genial manners;
and so was generally a popular man among his compeers. His inherited
family property made him more than independent; so his business
dealings were entered into rather for amusement and to satisfy the
inborn Yankee craving to be doing something, than for need or for gain.
Mr. Copley laid no special value on money, beyond what went to make him
comfortable. But he lacked any feeling for art, which might have made
him a collector and connoisseur; he had no love for nature, which might
have expended itself in grounds and gardens; he cared little for
knowledge, except such as he could forthwith use. What was left to him
but business? for he was not of those softly natures which sit down at
home in the midst of their families and are content. However, Mr.
Copley could value his home belongings, and had an eye to discern
things.

He was watching Dolly, one day just before their departure, as she was
busying herself with a bunch of violets; putting some of them in a
glass, sticking some of them in her mother's hair, finally holding the
bunch under her father's nose.

"Dolly," said her father, "I declare I don't know whether you are most
of a child or a woman!"

"I suppose I can be both, father; can't I?"

"I don't know about that."

"So I tell her," said Mrs. Copley. "It's all very well as long as she
is here; but I tell her she has got to give up being a child and
playing with the chickens."

"Why must I?" said Dolly.

"You will find other playthings on the other side," said her father,
fondly putting his arm round her and drawing her up to him.

"Will they be as good as chickens? What will they be?"

"Yes, there, 'what will they be,' she asks! I do believe that Dolly has
no idea," Mrs. Copley remarked.

"She will find out soon enough," said Mr. Copley contentedly.

"What will they be, father?" Dolly repeated, making for the present a
plaything of her father's head; for both her soft arms were around it,
and she was touching first one side and then the other side with her
own cheeks. Mr. Copley seemed to enjoy the play, for he gave himself up
to it luxuriously and made no answer.

"Dolly has been long enough in Philadelphia," Mrs. Copley went on. "It
is time she was away."

"So I think."

"Father," said Dolly now, "have I done with going to school?"

There ensued a debate