inty things, and can I read them? Betty would just go wild over
that."

"Yes, I will find it for you. And we won't worry now about the hard
knots over in the back of the arithmetic."

"Nor about the stockings. Miss Isabel is knitting some beautiful silk
ones, blossom color."

Ladies and girls danced in slippers then and wore them for evening
company, and stockings were quite a feature in attire.

Uncle Win was too indulgent, of course. Miss Recompense said she had
never known a girl to be brought up just that way, and shook her head
doubtfully.

Early in the new year an event happened, or rather the tidings came to
them that seemed to have a bearing on both of these points. An old sea
captain one day brought a curious oaken chest, brass bound, and with
three brass initials on the top. The key, which was tied up in a small
leathern bag, and a letter stowed away in an enormous well-worn wallet,
he delivered to "Mr. Winthrop Adams, Esq."

It contained an unfinished letter from Miss Arabella, beginning "Dear
and Honored Sir," and another from the borough justice. Miss Arabella
was dead. The care of her sister had worn her so much that she had
dropped into a gentle decline, and knowing herself near the end had
packed the chest with some table linen that belonged to the mother of
Doris, some clothing, two dresses of her own, several petticoats, two
pairs of satin slippers she had worn in her youth and outgrown, and six
pairs of silk stockings. Doris would grow into them all presently.

Then inclosed was a bank note for one hundred pounds sterling, and much
love and fond remembrances.

The other note announced the death of Miss Arabella Sophia Roulstone,
aged eighty-one years and three months, and the time of her burial. Her
will had been read and the bequests were being paid. Mr. Millington
requested a release before a notary, and an acknowledgment of the safe
arrival of the goods and the legacy, to be returned by the captain.

Mr. Adams went out with the captain and attended to the business.

Doris had a little cry over Miss Arabella. It did not seem as if she
could be eighty years old. She could recall the sweet, placid face under
the snowy cap, and almost hear the soft voice.

"That is quite a legacy," said Uncle Win. "Doris, can you compute it in
dollars?"

We had come to have a currency of our own--"decimal" it was called,
because computed by tens.

We still reckoned a good deal in pounds, shillings, and