that could be woven upon her plain places. That was one thing which
mother taught us all.

"Your life will come to you; you need not run after it," she would
say, if we ever got restless and began to think there was no way out
of the family hedge. "Have everything in yourselves as it should be,
and then you can take the chances as they arrive."

"Only we needn't put our bonnets on, and sit at the windows," Barbara
once replied.

"No," said Mrs. Holabird; "and especially at the front windows. A
great deal that is good--a great deal of the best--comes in at the
back-doors."

Everybody, we thought, did not have a back-door to their life, as we
did. They hardly seemed to know if they had one to their houses.

Our "back yett was ajee," now, at any rate.

Leslie Goldthwaite came in at it, though, just the same, and so did
her cousin and Dakie. [Footnote: Harry Goldthwaite is Leslie's cousin,
and Mr. Aaron Goldthwaite's ward. I do not believe we have ever
thought to put this in before.]

Otherwise, for two or three weeks, our chief variety was in sending
for old Miss Trixie Spring to spend the day.

Miss Trixie Spring is a lively old lady, who, some threescore and five
years ago, was christened "Beatrix." She plays backgammon in the