to them a helping hand and encouraged them to live useful and good lives.  We cry am I my sister’s keeper? [I?] will not wipe the blood off our hands if through pride and selfishness we have stabbed by our neglect souls we should have helped by our kindness.  I always feel for young girls who are lonely and neglected in large cities and are in danger of being ensnared by pretended sympathies and false friendship, and, to-day, no girl is more welcome at any social gathering than Annette.”

“Mrs. Lasette,” said Mrs. Hanson, “you are rich and you can do as you choose in A.P.  You can set the fashion.”

“No; I am not rich, but I hope that I will always be able to lend a hand to any lonely girl who is neglected, slighted and forgotten while she is trying to do right, who comes within my reach while I live in A.P.  Good morning.”

“Annette,” said Mrs. Hanson,[12] “has a champion who will stand by her.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Harcourt,[13] “Anna is true as steel; the kind of woman you can tie to.  When my great trouble came, she was good as gold, and when my poor heart was almost breaking, she always had a kind word for me.  I wish we had ten thousand like her.”

“Well, mother, I must go, but if Annette does graduate don’t let her go on the stage looking like a fright.  General H’s daughter has a beautiful new silk dress and a lovely hat which she got just a few weeks before her mother’s death; as she has gone in black she wants to sell it, and if you say so, and will pay for it on installments, I can get if for Annette, and I think with a little alteration it would be splendid for her graduation dress.”

“No; Eliza, I can’t afford it.”

“Why, mother, Annette will need something nice for the occasion, and it will not cost any more than what you intend to pay for her dress and hat.  Why not take them?”

“Because Annette is not able to wear them.  Suppose she had that one fine dress and hat, would she not want more to match with them?  I don’t want her to learn to dress in a style that she cannot honestly afford.  I think this love of dress is the ruination of many a young girl.  I think this straining after fine things when you are not able to get them, is perfectly ridiculous.  I believe in cutting your coat according to your cloth.  I saw Mrs. Hempstead’s daughter last Sunday dressed up in a handsome light silk, and a beautiful spring hat, and if she or her mother would get sick to-morrow, they would, I suppose, soon be objects of public charity or dependent on her widowed sister, who is too proud to see her go to the poor house; and this is just the trouble with a lot of people; they not only have their own burdens to bear but somebody else’s.  You may call me an old fogy, but I would rather live cheap and dress plain than shirk my burdens because I had wasted when they had saved.  You and John Hanson are both young and have got your health and strength, and instead of buying sealskins, and velvets and furbelows, you had better be laying up for a rainy day.  You have no more need for a sealskin cloak than a cat has for a catechism.  Now you do as you please, I have had my say.”