ot the chess-board? What
_should_ we do without our mending-day?"

These two girls had bought new stockings for all the little feet at
home, that the weekly darning might be less for the mother while they
were away; and had come with their own patiently cared for old hose,
"which they should have nothing else to do but to embroider."

They had made a sort of holiday, in their fashion, of mending-day at
home, till it had come to seem like a positive treat and rest; and the
habit was so strong upon them that they hailed it even here. They always
got out their little chess-board, when they sat down to the big basket
together. They could darn, and consider, and move, and darn again; and
so could keep it up all day long, as else even they would have found it
nearly intolerable to do. So, though they seemed slower at it, they
really in the end saved time. Thursday night saw the tedious work all
done, and the basket piled with neatly folded pairs, like a heap of fine
white rolls. This was a great thing, and "enough for one day," as Mrs.
Josselyn said. It was disastrous if they once began to lie over. If they
could be disposed of between sun and sun, the girls were welcome to any
play they could get out of it.

"There they go, those two together. Always to the pines, and always with
a work-basket," said Leslie Goldthwaite, sitting on the piazza step at
the Green Cottage, by Mrs. Linceford's feet, the latter lady occupying
a Shaker rocking-chair behind. "What nice girls they seem to be,--and
nobody appears to know them much, beyond a 'good-morning'!"

"Henny-penny, Goosie-poosie, Turkey-lurky, Ducky-daddles, _and_ Chicken
Little!" said Mrs. Linceford, counting up from thumb to little finger.
"Dakie Thayne and Miss Craydocke, Marmaduke Wharne and these two,--they
just make it out," she continued, counting back again. "Whatever you do,
Les, don't make up to Fox Lox at last, for all our sakes!"

Out came Dakie Thayne, at this point, upon them, with his hands full.
"Miss Leslie, _could_ you head these needles for me with black wax? I
want them for my butterflies, and I've made _such_ a daub and scald of
it! I've blistered three fingers, and put lop-sided heads to two
miserable pins, and left no end of wax splutters on my table. I haven't
but two sticks more, and the deacon don't keep any; I must try to get a
dozen pins out of it, at least." He had his sealing-wax and a lighted
"homespun candle," as Leslie called the dips of Mrs.