rails of the fence.

"Now see, do see!" said Grace; "there goes my bonnet! What will Aunt
Hitty say?" and Grace began to cry.

"Don't you cry, Gracie; you offered it up to liberty, you know: it's
glorious to give up every thing for liberty."

"O, but Aunt Hitty won't think so."

"Well, don't cry, Gracie, you foolish girl! Do you think I can't get it?
Now, only play that that great rail is a fort, and your bonnet is a
prisoner in it, and see how quick I'll take the fort and get it!" and
Dick shouldered a stick and started off.

* * * * *

"What upon _airth_ keeps those children so long? I should think they
were _making_ chips!" said Aunt Mehetabel; "the fire's just a going out
under the tea kettle."

By this time Grace had lugged her heavy basket to the door, and was
stamping the snow off her little feet, which were so numb that she
needed to stamp, to be quite sure they were yet there. Aunt Mehetabel's
shrewd face was the first that greeted her as the door opened.

"Gracie--what upon _airth_!--wipe your nose, child; your hands are
frozen. Where alive is Dick?--and what's kept you out all this
time?--and where's your bonnet?"

Poor Grace, stunned by this cataract of questions, neither wiped her
nose nor gave any answer, but sidled up into the warm corner, where
grandmamma was knitting, and began quietly rubbing and blowing her
fingers, while the tears silently rolled down her cheeks, as the fire
made the former ache intolerably.

"Poor little dear!" said grandmamma, taking her hands in hers; "Hitty
shan't scold you. Grandma knows you've been a good girl--the wind blew
poor Gracie's bonnet away;" and grandmamma wiped both eyes and nose, and
gave her, moreover, a stalk of dried fennel out of her pocket; whereat
Grace took heart once more.

"Mother always makes fools of Roxy's children," said Mehetabel, puffing
zealously under the tea kettle. "There's a little maple sugar in that
saucer up there, mother, if you will keep giving it to her," she said,
still vigorously puffing. "And now, Gracie," she said, when, after a
while, the fire seemed in tolerable order, "will you answer my question?
Where is Dick?"

"Gone over in the lot, to get my bonnet."

"How came your bonnet off?" said Aunt Mehetabel. "I tied it on firm
enough."

"Dick wanted me to take it off for him, to throw up for liberty," said
Grace.

"Throw up for fiddlestick! Just one of Dick's cut-ups; and you was silly