"Makes me think of Grannie Green. When her rot of a husband used to be sleeping off his sprees, she'd say, 'I'm allers so thankful when he gits real far gone, fur then I'm sure he cain't be doin' anythin' wuss.'"

"Dear me!" bridled Betty, "I hope you don't mean to compare me to thet wretched old Jed Green!"

"No, my dear; but I used to wonder, then, if he couldn't have been doing something better,—but there! It wasn't to discuss poor old Jed Green that I came here; but, first, to work on this wonderful quilt, and, second, to ask you girls why you don't get Sara to form you into a society of King's Daughters here?"

"'King's daughters?' We look like king's daughters, don't we?" tittered
Dolly Lee.

"Very much," said Miss Prue, with that air of hers which made her so great a favorite, an air of bonhomie, almost impossible to describe. "We've been told on good authority that we are made in the King's image, so it must be true."

"Oh!—that?" cried Betty.

"Certainly; you didn't think we free-born Yankees—descendants of the Puritan Fathers—were going to claim relationship with any of those effete European aristocracies, did you?" with a droll look at Sara.

"N—no."

Betty, not half understanding, but fully aware of Miss Prue's drolleries, was determined not to be caught in any trap now, so kept to monosyllables; and the latter, having created sufficient interest to insure a hearing, proceeded to make her explanations in regard to such a circle.

In a small, isolated village anything which links one, even distantly, with the great throbbing world outside, is eagerly welcomed by the young. These all have their dreams, hopes, and fancies connected with this sphere on which we move, and they are usually far too wide to be contained within one square mile of territory; unless, perchance, that mile teems so thickly with humanity as to offer every possible form of comedy and tragedy. For it is not trees and hills and skies, or even the sea, which can satisfy youth; but living, breathing, suffering human nature. By and by they tire, perhaps, of the latter, and go back to nature,—in love, as they have never been with man,—but that is after disappointment has made the heart sore.