them; and when my fortune is made, I intend to
show my gratitude by taking three flat-irons
rampant for my coat of arms.

Nan laughed merrily, as she looked at the burns
on her hand; but Di elevated the most prominent
feature of her brown countenance, and sighed
despondingly,--

"Dear, dear, what a disappointing world this
is! I no sooner build a nice castle in Spain, and
settle a smart young knight therein, than down it
comes about my ears; and the ungrateful youth,
who might fight dragons, if he chose, insists on
quenching his energies in a saucepan, and making
a Saint Lawrence of himself by wasting his life
on a series of gridirons. Ah, if I were only a man,
I would do something better than that, and prove
that heroes are not all dead yet. But, instead
of that, I'm only a woman, and must sit rasping
my temper with absurdities like this." And Di
wrestled with her knitting as if it were Fate, and
she were paying off the grudge she owed it.

John leaned toward her, saying, with a look
that made his plain face handsome,--

"Di, my father began the world as I begin
it, and left it the richer for the useful years he
spent here,--as I hope I may leave it some half-