“The land sakes alive! Brother Endicott will have to buy calico by the piece for their gowns! He might get a little throwed off, or a spool of cotton extry. He, he! ho, ho! Well, children are a great risk! You don’t s’pose there’ll be a donation party right away—do you!” “There is donation enough for the present, I think; and the sewing society will not be called upon.” I liked that soft, silvery voice of Mrs. Whitcomb. It was just like her pretty light hair, beginning to be plentifully sprinkled with silver, and her clear peachy skin, that was just a little wrinkled. Her touch was so gentle, her motions so graceful and pleasing! “I was only joking about it. They’ll miss her in the s’ciety—that’s what they will.” Aunt Letty Perkins was—dreadful! a thorn in the flesh; a sort of bitter, puckery presence, as if you had just tasted an unripe persimmon. “And it’ll be a puzzle to get husbands for ’em all. That’s the most unfort’net thing about girls.” I suppose she meant us, not the society. My face was in a blaze of indignation. Then the door was shut, and I went on with my dusting. It was a sunny April morning, and a pair of swallows were twittering about the windows. Another girl and there were seven of us. Some one in the parish had said that Mrs. Endicott would always be sure of a Sunday school class, for she could fill it up with her own children. I couldn’t help wishing that there was just one boy among us, even if it were that wee bairnie they had been discussing. Boys are nice—in some ways. I don’t know that I should have modified my opinion so suddenly but for two things. My eye happened to fall on my pretty pearl paper-cutter, that had been sent to me at Christmas. On one side of the handle was my monogram, done in scarlet and gold, on the other a little trail of blue forget-me-nots. A few weeks ago Harry Denham had been in spending the evening with us,—that means Fan and I, the elders. He and Fanny were having a little scrimmage, and, in a half tragic manner, he seized my pretty gift, pretending to arm himself with a dagger, and, somehow, in the melee, the poor thing snapped in twain.