do declare! you mustn't talk."

"I'm not," said Sarah, laughing; "it's you that are talking. You haven't
sewed a stitch for five minutes, either."

Gypsy sighed, and her needle began to fly savagely. There was a little
silence.

"You see," said Gypsy, breaking it, "I'm trying to reform."

"Reform?" said Sarah, with some vague ideas of Luther and Melancthon, and
Gypsy's wearing a wig and spectacles, and reading Cruden's "Concordance."

"Yes," nodded Gypsy, "reform. I never knew anybody need it as much as I. I
never do things anyway, and then I do them wrong, and then I forget all
about them. Mother says I'm improving. She says my room used to look like
a perfect Babel, and now I keep the wardrobe door shut, and dust it
out--sometimes. Then there's my mending. I came out here so's to be quiet
and _keep at it_. The poor dear woman is so afraid I won't learn to do
things in a lady-like way. It would be dreadful not to grow up a lady,
wouldn't it?"

"Dreadful!" said Sarah; "only I wish you'd hurry and get through, so we
can go down to the swamp and sail. Couldn't you take a little bigger
stitches?"

"No," said Gypsy, resolutely; "I should have to rip it all out. I'm going
to do it right, if it takes me all day."

Gypsy began to sew with a will, and Sarah, finding it was for her own