rn-bread
and tea, and he looked so demure, and conducted himself in such an
exemplary manner, that one would have scarcely thought him given to marbles
and dirty company. Having eaten to his satisfaction he quite ingratiated
himself with Caddy by picking up all the crumbs he had spilled during tea,
and throwing them upon the dust-heap. This last act was quite a stroke of
policy, as even Caddy began to regard him as capable of reformation.

The tea-things washed up and cleared away, the females busied themselves
with their sewing, and Charlie immersed himself in his lessons for the
morrow with a hearty goodwill and perseverance as if he had abjured marbles
for ever.

The hearty supper and persevering attention to study soon began to produce
their customary effect upon Charlie. He could not get on with his lessons.
Many of the state capitals positively refused to be found, and he was
beginning to entertain the sage notion that probably some of the
legislatures had come to the conclusion to dispense with them altogether,
or had had them placed in such obscure places that they could not be found.
The variously coloured states began to form a vast kaleidoscope, in which
the lakes and rivers had been entirely swallowed up. Ranges of mountains
disappeared, and gulfs and bays and islands were entirely lost. In fact, he
was sleepy, and had already had two or three narrow escapes from butting
over the candles; finally he fell from his chair, crushing Caddy's
newly-trimmed bonnet, to the intense grief and indignation of that young
lady, who inflicted summary vengeance upon him before he was sufficiently
awake to be aware of what had happened.

The work being finished, Mrs. Ellis and Caddy prepared to take it home to
Mrs. Thomas, leaving Esther at home to receive her father on his return and
give him his tea.

Mrs. Ellis and Caddy wended their way towards the fashionable part of the
city, looking in at the various shop-windows as they went. Numberless were
the great bargains they saw there displayed, and divers were the
discussions they held respecting them. "Oh, isn't that a pretty calico,
mother, that with the green ground?"

"'Tis pretty, but it won't wash, child; those colours always run."

"Just look at that silk though--now that's cheap, you must
acknowledge--only eighty-seven and a half cents; if I only had a dress of
that I should be fixed."

"Laws, Caddy!" replied Mrs. Ellis, "that stuff is as slazy as a washed
cot