was her uncle and guardian raised her a good
deal in the estimation of Dorcas, for even then a man was thought
unusually well off to be able to live without doing any real business.

"Would you like to play graces?" asked Eudora.

"I don't know," admitted Doris.

"We were playing. Grace and Molly, you go down that end of the room.
Now, this is the way. When Betty tosses it you catch it on the sticks,
so."

It seemed very easy when Eudora caught it and tossed it back, and Betty
threw it again.

"Now you try," and she put the sticks in Doris' hands. "Oh, what tiny
little hands you have, and as white as snow!"

Doris blushed. She threw the hoop and it "wabbled," but Betty, a bright,
black-eyed girl, made a lunge or two, and caught it on the tip of one
stick, and back it came. Doris was looking at her and never moved her
hand.

"Pick it up and try again," said Eudora. "That isn't the right way, but
we will excuse you this time."

Alas! this time Doris ran and brandished her stick in the air to no
purpose.

"I would rather see you play," she said. "You are all doing it so
beautifully."

"Then you stand here and watch."

It was very fascinating. There were three sets playing. Doris found that
when a girl missed she gave up to some other companion. Her eyes could
hardly move quickly enough to watch all the hoops. Now and then a girl
was crowned,--that meant the hoops encircled her head,--and they all
shouted.

Then Helen said they had played that long enough, and now they would try
"Hunt the slipper." The slipper was a pretty one, made of pink plush
with a dainty heel and a shining buckle set in a small pink bow. Doris
said "it looked like a Cinderella slipper."

"Oh, do you know about Cinderella? Do you know many stories?"

"Not a great many. Little Red Riding Hood and Beauty and the Beast, and
a few in verses."

"I wish you knew something quite new. Oh!"

Eudora had forgotten to keep the slipper going. The girls were sitting
in a ring, so she jumped up cheerfully and began to hunt. There were a
great many little giggles and exclamations, and then someone said: "Oh,
let's stop playing and tell riddles!"

That was a never-failing amusement. There were some very bright ones,
some very puzzling ones. One girl asked how many baskets of dirt there
were in Copp's Hill.

"Why, there can't anybody tell," said Helen. "You couldn't measure it
that way."

Everybody looked at everybody else, and the glances fi