clean shirt, and a decent coat on. Suppose we try the experiment of
dressing Elizabeth. How many old gowns have we?"

The number was few. Nothing in the Leaf family was ever cast off till
its very last extremity of decay; the talent that

"Gars auld claes look amaist as gude's the new"

being specially possessed by Hilary. She counted over her own
wardrobe and Johanna's but found nothing that could be spared.

"Yes, my love, there is one thing. You certainly shall never put on
that old brown merino again; though you have laid it so carefully by,
as if you meant it to come out as fresh as ever next winter. No,
Hilary, you must have a new gown, and you must give Elizabeth your
brown merino."

Hilary laughed, and replied not.

Now it might be a pathetic indication of a girl who had very few
clothes, but Hilary had a superstitious weakness concerning
hers.--Every dress had its own peculiar chronicle of the scenes where
it had been, the enjoyments she had shared in it. Particular dresses
were special memorials of her loves, her pleasures, her little
passing pains; as long as a bit remained of the poor old fabric the
sight of it recalled them all.

This brown merino--in which she had sat two whole winters over her
Greek and Latin by Robert Lyon's side, which he had once stopped to
touch and notice, saying what a pretty color it was, and how he liked