in fashion as well
as any one could; so I knew she'd be mightily pleased if I could tell
her a new place to set her comb, a different way to fasten her collar,
or about an unusual pattern for a frock.

I got my drink at the spring, father offered to stop at the riffle, but
I was enjoying the ride so much, and I could always wade at home,
although our creek was not so beautiful as Enyard's, but for common
wading it would do; we went through the narrows, like two shakes of a
sheep's tail, then we settled down to a slow trot, and were having the
loveliest visit possible, when in the bundle on my lap, I saw the end
of something that interested me. Mr. Agnew always made our mail into a
roll with the Advocate and the Agriculturist on the outside, and
because every one was so anxious about their letters, and some of them
meant so much, I felt grown and important while holding the package.

I was gripping it tight when I noticed the end of one letter much wider
and fatter than any I ever had seen, so when father was not looking I
began pushing it a little at one end, and pulling it at the other, to
work it up, until I could read the address. I got it out so far I
thought every minute he'd notice, and tell me not to do that, but I
could only see Stanton. All of us were Stanton, so it might be for me,
for that matter. Jerry might be sending me pictures, or a book, he did
sometimes, but there was an exciting thing about it. Besides being
fatter than it looked right at the end, it was plastered with
stamps--lots of them, enough to have brought it clear around the world.
I pushed that end back, pulled out the other, and took one good look.
I almost fell from the carriage. I grabbed father's arm and cried:
"Stop! Stop this team quick. Stop them and see if I can read."

"Are you crazy, child?" asked father, but he checked the horses.

"No, but you are going to be in a minute," I said. "Look at that!"

I yanked the letter from the bundle, and held it over. I THOUGHT I
could read, but I was too scared to be sure. I thought it said in big,
strong, upstanding letters, Miss Shelley Stanton, Groveville, Indiana.
And in the upper corner, Blackburn, Yeats and PAGET, Counsellors of
Law, 37 to 39 State St., Chicago. I put my finger on the Paget, and
looked into father's face. I was no fool after all. He was not a bit
surer that HE could read than I was, from the dazed way he stared.

"You see!" I said.

"It says Paget!" he