news. Then
she insisted on looking over the clothes for the Monday's wash and
mending up the rents. Tuesday she would come in and darn the stockings.
When she was nine years old it was her business to do all the family
darning, looking askance at Doris.

"Now, if you had been an only child, Aunt Priscilla, and had no parents,
what a small amount of darning would have fallen to your share!" said
Betty.

"Well, I suppose I would have been put out somewhere and trained to make
myself useful. And if I'd had any money that would have been on
interest, so that I could have some security against want in my old age.
Anyway, it isn't likely I should have been allowed to fritter away my
time."

Betty wondered how Aunt Priscilla could content herself with doing such
a very little now! Not but what she had earned a rest. And Foster
Leverett, who managed some of her business, said _sub rosa_ that she was
not spending all her income.

"You can't come up to your mother making tea," she said at the supper
table. "Your mother makes the best cup of tea I ever tasted."

Taking it altogether they did get on passably well without Mrs. Leverett
during the ten days. She brought little James, six years of age, who
couldn't go the long distance to school in cold weather with the two
older children, and so was treated to a visit at grandmother's.

Mary was doing well and had a sweet little girl, as good as a kitten.
Mr. Manning's Aunt Comfort had come to stay a spell through the winter.
And now there was getting ready for Thanksgiving. There was no time to
make mince pies, but then Mrs. Leverett didn't care so much for them
early in the season. Hollis' family would come up, they would ask Aunt
Priscilla, and maybe Cousin Winthrop would join them. So they were busy
as possible.

Little James took a great liking to his shy cousin Doris, and helped her
say tables and spell. He had been at school all summer and was very
bright and quick.

"But, Uncle Foster," she declared, "the children in America are much
smarter than English children. They understand everything so easily."

Then came the first big snowstorm of the season. There had been two or
three little dashes and squalls. It began at noon and snowed all night.
The sky was so white in the early morning you could hardly tell where
the snow line ended and where it began; but by and by there came a
bluish, silvery streak that parted it like a band, and presently a pale
sun ventured for