or glasses, of different colours."

"What colours?" demanded Charity.

"Yellow, and dark red, and green, and white."

"What were _they_ all for?" asked uncle Tim.

"Wine; different sorts of wine."

"Different sorts o' wine! How many sorts did they have, at one dinner?"

"I cannot tell you. I do not know. A great many."

"Did you drink any, Lois?"

"No, aunt Anne."

"I suppose they thought you were a real country girl, because you
didn't?"

"Nobody thought anything about it. The servants brought the wine;
everybody did just as he pleased about taking it."

"What did you have to eat, Lois, with so much to drink?" asked her
elder sister.

"More than I can tell, Charity. There must have been a dozen large
dishes, at each end of the table, besides the soup and the fish; and no
end of smaller dishes."

"For a dozen people!" cried Charity.

"I suppose it's because I don't know anythin'," said Mr.
Hotchkiss,--"but I always _du_ hate to see a whole lot o' things before
me more'n I can eat!"

"It's downright wicked waste, that's what I call it," said Mrs. Marx;
"but I s'pose that's because I don't know anythin'."

"And you like that sort o' way better 'n this 'n?" inquired uncle Tim
of Lois.

"I said no more than that it was prettier, uncle Tim."

"But _du_ ye?"

Lois's eye met involuntarily Mrs. Barclay's for an instant, and she
smiled.

"Uncle Tim, I think there is something to be said on both sides."

"There ain't no sense on that side."

"There is some prettiness; and I like prettiness."

"Prettiness won't butter nobody's bread. Mother, you've let Lois go
once too often among those city folks. She's nigh about sp'iled for a
Shampuashuh man now."

"Perhaps a Shampuashuh man will not get her," said Mrs. Barclay
mischievously.

"Who else is to get her?" cried Mrs. Marx. "We're all o' one sort here;
and there's hardly a man but what's respectable, and very few that
ain't more or less well-to-do; but we all work and mean to work, and we
mostly all know our own mind. I do despise a man who don't do nothin',
and who asks other folks what he's to think!"

"That sort of person is not held in very high esteem in any society, I
believe," said Mrs. Barclay courteously; though she was much amused,
and was willing for her own reasons that the talk should go a little
further. Therefore she spoke.

"Well, idleness breeds 'em," said the other lady.

"But who respects them?"

"The world'll respect any