bserved Maud, with
her mouth full of honey, when the feast was well under way. "I do wish
I could have a nice room like this, and a cat and a bird that would n't
eat each other up, and a dear little teakettle, and make just as much
toast as I like."

Such a peal of laughter greeted Maud's pensive aspiration, that Miss
Mills smiled over her solitary cup of tea, and little Nick burst into a
perfect ecstasy of song, as he sat on the sugar-bowl helping himself.

"I don't care for the toast and the kettle, but I do envy you your good
spirits, Polly," said Fanny, as the merriment subsided. "I 'm so tired
of everybody and everything, it seems sometimes as if I should die of
ennui. Don't you ever feel so?"

"Things worry me sometimes, but I just catch up a broom and sweep, or
wash hard, or walk, or go at something with all my might, and I usually
find that by the time I get through the worry is gone, or I 've got
courage enough to bear it without grumbling," answered Polly, cutting
the brown loaf energetically.

"I can't do those things, you know; there 's no need of it, and I
don't think they 'd cure my worrying," said Fanny, languidly feeding
Ashputtel, who sat decorously beside her, at the table, winking at the
cream pot.

"A little poverty would do you good, Fan; just enough necessity to keep
you busy till you find how good work is; and when you once learn that,
you won't complain of ennui any more," returned Polly, who had taken
kindly the hard lesson which twenty years of cheerful poverty had taught
her.

"Mercy, no, I should hate that; but I wish some one would invent a new
amusement for rich people. I 'm dead sick of parties, and flirtations,
trying to out-dress my neighbors, and going the same round year after
year, like a squirrel in a cage."

Fanny's tone was bitter as well as discontented, her face sad as well as
listless, and Polly had an instinctive feeling that some trouble, more
real than any she had ever known before, was lying heavy at her friend's
heart. That was not the time to speak of it, but Polly resolved to stand
ready to offer sympathy, if nothing more, whenever the confidential
minute came; and her manner was so kind, so comfortable, that Fanny felt
its silent magic, grew more cheerful in the quiet atmosphere of that
little room, and when they said good-night, after an old-time gossip by
the fire, she kissed her hostess warmly, saying, with a grateful look,
"Polly, dear, I shall come often, y