edit will be saved."

"If we were not in the street, I should fall upon you with kisses and
tears of gratitude," I answered ecstatically; "as it is, consider
yourself embraced.--Cousin Serena, will you help us?"

There was no question of that: cousin Serena was only too glad to give
us her services; and although, as I have said, she needed to be guided
and tyrannized over in the matter of style and fashion where her own
dress was concerned, she was an expert in fashioning garments for the
poor.

Bessie's idea was acted upon forthwith. We took our way down to
Arnold's, purchased the necessary material, and, lest it should not be
sent home in time, bid pride hide its head, and carried the parcels
ourselves.

Jim beamed upon us when he gathered, from the conversation around the
dinner-table, to what the evening was to be devoted, and became quite
an overpowering nuisance with his pressing attentions to the young
ladies.

The dress was so nearly completed that night that Milly and I had but
little difficulty in finishing it for the next afternoon.

Father and mother gave consent to my pursuing my benevolent intentions
with regard to Matty, so far as I could do it without venturing into
the abode of her wretched parents, but positively forbade my going
there even under the guidance and protection of cousin Serena. Indeed,
the fear of them which Tony and Matty showed augured little good or
encouragement for those who would benefit these children, unless some
profit therefrom, was to accrue to the elder Blairs themselves.

The dress was ready in good time, and supplemented by the addition of a
warm sack of the same color from mother and a little cloth cap from
aunt Emily. A hood had been in the thoughts of the latter, as warmer
and more suitable; but I had begged for the cap as affording better
opportunity for the display of Matty's hair. "Poor little object!" I
pleaded: "why not allow her the gratification of this small vanity?"
and aunt Emily yielded, as she was sure to do when any one's small
whims and fancies were to be satisfied.

Maria made the garments into a neat parcel for me; and I, thinking to
give Jim a pleasure, summoned him on his return from school to be the
bearer thereof, and to accompany me to Johnny's. That Jim was pleased,
was an assured fact; and his tongue wagged incessantly though
respectfully all the way until we arrived at our destination. Then
while I opened the parcel, and presented Matty w