for my work, you see.  But I couldn’t go home bareheaded, and I didn’t know a soul in that neighborhood.  I turned to step into a grocery store at the corner, to borrow a brush or buy a sheet of paper to wear, for I looked like a lunatic with my battered hat and my hair in a perfect mop.  Luckily I spied a woman’s fancy shop on the other corner, and rushed in there to hide myself, for the brats hooted and people stared.  It was a very small shop, and behind the counter sat a tall, thin, washed-out-looking woman, making a baby’s hood.  She looked poor and blue and rather sour, but took pity on me; and while she sewed the cord, dried the feather, and brushed off the dirt, I warmed myself and looked about to see what I could buy in return for her trouble.

“A few children’s aprons hung in the little window, with some knit lace, balls, and old-fashioned garters, two or three dolls, and a very poor display of small wares.  In a show-case, however, on the table that was the counter, I found some really pretty things, made of plush, silk, and ribbon, with a good deal of taste.  So I said I’d buy a needle-book, and a gay ball, and a pair of distracting baby’s shoes, made to look like little open-work socks with pink ankle-ties, so cunning and dainty, I was glad to get them for Cousin Clara’s baby.  The woman seemed pleased, though she had a grim way of talking, and never smiled once.  I observed that she handled my hat as if used to such work, and evidently liked to do it.  I thanked her for repairing damages so quickly and well, and she said, with my hat on her hand, as if she hated to part with it, ’I’m used to millineryin’ and never should have give it up, if I didn’t have my folks to see to.  I took this shop, hopin’ to make things go, as such a place was needed round here, but mother broke down, and is a sight of care; so I couldn’t leave her, and doctors is expensive, and times hard, and I had to drop my trade, and fall back on pins and needles, and so on.’”

Ella was a capital mimic, and imitated the nasal tones of the Vermont woman to the life, with a doleful pucker of her own blooming face, which gave such a truthful picture of poor Miss Almira Miller that those who had seen her recognized it at once, and laughed gayly.

“Just as I was murmuring a few words of regret at her bad luck,” continued Ella, “a sharp voice called out from a back room, ’Almiry!  Almiry! come here.’  It sounded very like a cross parrot, but it was the old lady, and while I put on my hat I heard her asking who was in the shop, and what we were ‘gabbin’ about.’  Her daughter told her, and the old soul demanded to ‘see the gal;’ so I went in, being ready for fun as usual.  It was a little, dark, dismal place, but as neat as a pin, and in the bed sat a regular Grandma Smallweed smoking a pipe, with a big cap, a snuff-box, and a red cotton handkerchief.  She was a tiny, dried-up thing, brown as a berry, with eyes like black beads, a nose and chin that nearly