“The bicycle didn’t need to do anything for you!” he cried, warmly.

Mrs. Ellis, a little distance in the rear, heard, turned, and walked thoughtfully away.  “They’re off,” said she—­she had acquired a sporting tinge of thought from Shuey Cardigan.  “If with that start he can’t make the running, it’s a wonder.”

“I have invited Mr. Winslow and his mother to dinner,” said Miss Hopkins, in the morning.  “Will you come too, Maggie?”

“I’ll back him against the marquis,” thought Margaret, gleefully.

A week later Lorania said:  “I really think I must be getting thinner.  Fancy Mr. Winslow, who is so clear-sighted, mistaking me for Sibyl!  He says—­I told him how I had suffered from my figure—­he says it can’t be what he has suffered from his.  Do you think him so very short, Maggie?  Of course he isn’t tall, but he has an elegant figure, I think, and I never saw anywhere such a rider!”

Mrs. Ellis answered, heartily, “He isn’t very small, and he is a beautiful figure on the wheel!” And added to herself, “I know what was in that letter she sent yesterday to the marquis!  But to think of its all being due to the bicycle!”

The Marrying of Esther

BY MARY M. MEARS

“Set there and cry; it’s so sensible; and I ’ain’t said that a June weddin’ wouldn’t be a little nicer.  But what you goin’ to live on?  Joe can’t git his money that soon.”

“He—­said he thought he could manage.  But I won’t be married at all if I can’t have it—­right.”

“Well, you can have it right.  All is, there are some folks in this town that if they don’t calculate doin’ real well by you, I don’t feel called upon to invite.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” sobbed the girl.  She sat by the kitchen table, her face hidden in her arms.  Her mother stood looking at her tenderly, and yet with a certain anger.

“I mean about the presents.  You’ve worked in the church, you’ve sung in the choir for years, and now it’s a chance for folks to show that they appreciate it, and without they’re goin’ to—­Boxes of cake would be plenty if they wa’n’t goin’ to serve you any better than they did Ella Plummet.”

Esther Robinson lifted her head.  She was quite large, in a soft young way, and her skin was as pure as a baby’s.  “But you can’t know beforehand how they’re going to treat me!”

“Yes, I can know beforehand, too, and if you’re set on next month, it’s none too soon to be seein’ about it.  I’ve a good mind to step over to Mis’ Lawrence’s and Mis’ Stetson’s this afternoon.”

“Mother!  You—­wouldn’t ask ’em anything?”

Mrs. Robinson hung away her dishtowel; then she faced Esther.  “Of course I wouldn’t ask ’em; there’s other ways of findin’ out besides asking.  I’d bring the subject round by saying I hoped there wouldn’t be many duplicates, and I’d git out of ’em what they intended givin’ without seemin’ to.”  Esther looked at her mother with a sort of fascination.  “Then we could give some idea about the refreshments; for I ain’t a-goin’ to have no elaborate layout without I do know; and it ain’t because I grudge the money, either,” she added, in swift self-defence.