"Oh," she said, with her kindly smile, "you are young Mrs. John: I
remember when your husband was a babe. I think I can find it;--yes, it
is down in this corner,"--rummaging in the yellow box; "here it is--the
pattern your aunt,--Mrs. John, selected for your husband's first short
dress. All the Hunt family were customers of ours. Mrs. John, she
they called Aunt Lou, was a great favorite. She was rich, and had no
children. Well, she came one day all in a flurry to get a pattern--a
nice wide one she said, for little John's dress. He was the first baby,
and they fairly idolized him. This is it. I recollect the wheel and the
overcasting. It was--let me see--forty years ago, come this December.
Now, this little scallop is as popular as any" and she fished up
another, all full of needle-pricks. "Some ladies don't like much
embroidery, but they want a little finish. This one trimmed a set of
linen for Mrs. Senator Jones. It took me a good while to draw it. She
don't like this turn in the corner, so I made up something else. You
know I design my own patterns."

Then resisting the temptation to give the history of the rest of her
favorites, she put the box aside and turned her attention to the quart
bottle in hand, with its strip of muslin stretched tight around it,
over a bewildering collection of grapes and leaves. This was her method,
and the admiring sisters thought it perfect.

That night I teased John's mother into hunting up the dress, and there
was the identical pattern, edging the fine white cambric now yellow with
age. She was amused at my report of Miss Chrissy.

In my annual journeyings to the old town I never neglected "The Pears."
They always looked as if I had just stepped out for an hour, and come