"No," replied the elder sister, with assumed gravity; "I am proud of
your dress because it is my own handiwork, and it does me credit; but as
for you--"

"I am Nature's handiwork, and I do her credit!" interrupted Nora, with
gay self-assertion.

"I am quite ashamed of you, you are so vain!" continued Hannah,
completing her sentence.

"Oh, vain, am I? Very well, then, another time I will keep my vanity to
myself. It is quite as easy to conceal as to confess, you know; though
it may not be quite as good for the soul," exclaimed Nora, with merry
perversity, as she danced off in search of her bonnet.

She had not far to look; for the one poor room contained all of the
sisters' earthly goods. And they were easily summed up--a bed in one
corner, a loom in another, a spinning-wheel in the third, and a
corner-cupboard in the fourth; a chest of drawers sat against the wall
between the bed and the loom, and a pine table against the opposite wall
between the spinning-wheel and the cupboard; four wooden chairs sat just
wherever they could be crowded. There was no carpet on the floor, no
paper on the walls. There was but one door and one window to the hut,
and they were in front. Opposite them at the back of the room was a wide
fire-place, with a rude mantle shelf above it, adorned with old brass
candlesticks as bright as gold. Poor as this hut was, the most
fastidious fine lady need not have feared to sit down within it, it was
so purely clean.

The sisters were soon ready, and after closing up their wee hut as