"Please do, aunt. It would be such a novelty. A very _rara avis_, as
brother Tom says. I shall laugh until my sides ache."

"If you don't cry, Kate, I shall wonder," said Aunt Prudence,
looking grave.

"Cry? oh, dear! And all about a tailor! But tell the story, aunt."

"Some other time, dear."

"Oh, no. I'm just in the humour to hear it now. I'm as full of fun
as I can stick, and shall need all this overflow of spirits to keep
me up while listening to the pathetic story of a tailor."

"Perhaps you are right, Kate. It may require all the spirits you can
muster," returned Aunt Prudence, in a voice that was quite serious.
"So I will tell you the story now."

And Aunt Prudence thus began:

A good many years ago,--I was quite a young girl then,--two children
were left orphans, at the age of eleven years. They were
twins--brother and sister. Their names I will call Joseph and Agnes
Fletcher. The death of their parents left them without friends or
relatives; but a kind-hearted tailor and his wife, who lived
neighbours, took pity on the children and gave them a home. Joseph
was a smart, intelligent lad, and the tailor thought he could do no
better by him than to teach him his trade. So he set him to work
with the needle, occasionally sent him about on errands, and let him
go to school during the slack season. Joseph was a willing boy, as