thing! I s'pose she thinks I care because she's gone home; but I'm
glad of it, so there!" And with an emphatic shake of her curly
head, she ran into the house.

Up-stairs, in the large front room, sat her mother and her aunt,
busy with their sewing. The blinds were closed, to keep out the
warm sun of a sultry July day, and only an occasional breath of
air found its way in between their tightly turned slats. The whir
of the locust outside, and the regular creak, creak of Aunt Jane's
tall rocking-chair were the only sounds to break the stillness.
This peaceful scene was ruthlessly disturbed by Polly, who came
flying into the room and dropped into a chair at her mother's
side.

"Oh, how warm you are here!" she exclaimed, as she pushed back the
short red-gold hair that curled in little, soft rings about her
forehead.

"Little girls that will run on such a day as this must expect to
be warm," remarked Aunt Jane sedately, while she measured a hem
with a bit of paper notched to show the proper width. "Now if you
and Molly would bring your patchwork up here, and sew quietly with
your mother and me, you would be quite cool and comfortable."

"Patchwork!" echoed Polly, with a scornful little laugh. "Girls
don't sew patchwork nowadays, Aunt Jane."

"It would be better for them if they did, then," returned Aunt
Jane severely. "It is a much more useful way of spending one's
time, than embroidering nonsensical red wheels and flowers and