latiah Harmon's daughter, down to the corners, you
know. What girls want so many clothes for when they get
married, I cant for the life of me tell. The shops don't shut
up for good just afterward, so far as anybody knows, but
you'd think they did from the fuss some of them make. Mandy
had five new dresses. They was cut down to Worcester, but I
made them, besides two calikus and ten of every thing, and a
double gown and an Ulster and the Lord knows what not. I've
had to stick to it to put 'em through, but they're all done
at last, and she got married last week and went off, and
she'll spend the next few years a-alterin' of them things
over, or I miss my guess. That Mather girl keeps asking me
about you, but I tell her you haint wrote but twice, and I
don't know no more than she does. Mr. Bury got your Pa's
letter. We was glad to hear you liked it up there, but most
places is pleasant enough in summer. Winter is the tug. I
suppose it's cold enough where you are, sometimes, judging
from Probbabillities. Mr. Asher has took the house. Tell your
Pa. It dont look much like old times. He has put wooden
points on top of the barn and mended the back gate, and he's
got a nasty Newfoundland which barks most all the time. Now I
must conclude.--Yours truly,

WEALTHY A. JUDSON.

P. S.--My respects to your Pa and to all inquiring friends. I
was thinking that that water-proof of your Ma's had better be
cut over for you in the spring. What kind of help do you get
up in Maine?

"Oh, how like dear, funny old Wealthy that is!" cried Eyebright, as
between smiles and tears she listened to the reading of this letter.
"Whom do you suppose she means by 'all inquiring friends'? And isn't
it just like her to call Bessie 'that Mather girl'? Wealthy never
could endure Bessie,--I can't imagine why. Well, this has been a real
nice Christmas, after all. I'm glad you didn't go to the post-office
last week, papa, for then we should have got the letter sooner, and
shouldn't have had it for to-day. It was much nicer to have it now."

"Winter's the tug." Eyebright thought often of this sentence of
Wealthy's as the long weeks went by, and still the cold continued and
the spring delayed, till it seemed as though it were never coming at
all, and papa grew thinner and more listless and discouraged all the
time.