"that must do just as well."

When they reached the house, the widow had not come home.

But the old woman had gone, and she had taken the quilted petticoat
and the duffle cloak, and the plumcake from the top shelf away with
her; and no more was ever heard of any of the lot.

* * * * *

"For the future, my child," said the widow, "I hope you will always do
just as you are told, whatever So-so may say."

"I will, Mother," said little Joan. (And she did.) But the house-dog
sat and blinked. He dared not speak, he was in disgrace.

I do not feel quite sure about So-so. Wild dogs often amend their ways
far on this side of the gallows, and the Faithful sometimes fall; but
when anyone begins by being only So-so, he is very apt to be So-so to
the end. So-sos so seldom change.

But this one was _very_ soft and nice, and he got no cake that
tea-time. On the whole we will hope that he lived to be a Good Dog
ever after.

THE TRINITY FLOWER.

A Legend.

"Break forth, my lips, in praise, and own
The wiser love severely kind:
Since, richer for its chastening grown,
I see, whereas I once was blind."

--_The Clear Vision_, J. G. WHITTIER.

In days of yore there was once a certain hermit, who dwelt in a cell,
which he had fashioned for himself from a natural cave in the side of
a hill.

Now this hermit had a great love for flowers, and was moreover learned
in the virtues of herbs, and in that great mystery of healing which
lies hidden among the green things of GOD. And so it came to pass that
the country people from all parts came to him for the simples which
grew in the little garden which he had made before his cell. And as
his fame spread, and more people came to him, he added more and more
to the plat which he had reclaimed from the waste land around.

But after many years there came a Spring when the colors of the
flowers seemed paler to the hermit than they used to be; and as Summer
drew on, their shapes, became indistinct, and he mistook one plant
for another; and when Autumn came, he told them by their various
scents, and by their form, rather than by sight; and when the flowers
were gone, and Winter had come, the hermit was quite blind.

Now in the hamlet below there lived a boy who had become known to the
hermit on this manner. On the edge of the hermit's garden there grew
two crab trees, from the fruit of which he made every year a certain
confect