and was a-goin’ to employ a great number of clergymen, out of a parish, to travel as agents collecting funds; ‘but,’ says she, ‘I’ve a better tack for collectin’ than most people, and I’ve concluded to canvass this town myself for donations to this noble and worthy cause; and I’ve come to you, Miss Bugbee,’ says she, ’to lead off with your accustomed liberality.’—­Well, what does your ma do, but go into her room, to her draw, I suppose, and fetch out a five-dollar bill, and give it to Miss Jaynes, which I’d ‘a’ had to work a week, stitchin’ from mornin’ to night, to have earnt that five-dollar bill; though, of course, your ma had a right to burn it up, if she’d ‘a’ been a mind to; only it made me ache to see it go so, when there was thousands of poor starvin’ ragged orphans needin’ it so bad.  All to once Miss Jaynes wheeled and spoke to me:  ’Well, Miss Tira,’ says she, ‘can I have a dollar from you?’—­’No, ma’am,’ says I.—­’I supposed not,’ says she; which would have been sassy in anybody but the parson’s wife.  But I held my tongue, and out she went, takin’ no more notice of me than she did of Vi’let, nor half so much,—­for I see her kind o’ look towards the old woman, as if she was half a mind to ask her for a fourpence-ha’penny.  Well, that was the last on’t for a spell, until after New Year’s.  I was stayin’ then at your Uncle James’s, and one afternoon your ma sent for your Aunt Eunice and me to come over and take tea.  So we went over, and there was several of the neighbors invited in,—­Squire Bramhall’s wife, and them your ma used to go with most, and amongst the rest, of course, Miss Jaynes.  There had just before that been a donation party, New Year’s night, to the parson’s, and the Dorcas Society had bought Miss Jaynes a nice new Brussels carpet for her parlor, all cut and fitted and made up.  In the course of the afternoon Miss Bramhall spoke and asked if the new carpet was put down, and if it fitted well.  ’Oh, beautiful!’ says she, ’it fits the room like a glove; somebody must have had pretty good eyes to took the measure so correct, and I not know anything what was a-comin’; and I hope,’ says she, ’ladies, you’ll take an early opportunity to drop in and see it; for there a’n’t one of you but what I’m under obligation to for this touchin’ token of your love,’ (that’s what she called it,)—­’except,’ says she, of a sudden, ’except Miss Blake, whom, really, I hadn’t noticed before!’—­I tell ye, Cornele, my ebenezer was up at this; for you can’t tell how mean and spiteful she spoke and looked, pretendin’ as if I was so insignificant a critter she hadn’t taken notice of my bein’ there before, which, to be sure, she hadn’t even bid me good afternoon; and for my part, I hadn’t put myself forward among such women as was there, though I didn’t feel beneath ’em, nor they didn’t think so, except Miss Jaynes.—­Then she went on.  ‘Miss Blake,’ says she, ‘I believe didn’t mean no slight for not helpin’ towards the carpet; for she never gives to anything, as I