relations give it to him (he married into the quality), an' I remember
as if 'twas yisterday what a tew there was over it. An' I said to
myself then, if ever I was prospered I'd have a magenta sofy. I 'ain't
got to it till now, but now I'll have it if I die for't." "Well, I
guess you're in the right on't." Miss Dyer spoke absently, glancing
from the window in growing trouble. "O Mis' Blair!" she continued, with
a sudden burst of confidence, "you don't think there's a storm brewin',
do you? If it snows Wednesday, I shall give up beat!"

Mrs. Blair, in her turn, peered at the smiling sky.

"I hope you ain't one o' them kind that thinks every fair day's a
weather breeder," she said. "Law, no! I don't b'lieve it will storm;
an' if it does, why, there's other Wednesdays comin'!"




AT SUDLEIGH FAIR.


Delilah Joyce was sitting on her front doorstone with a fine disregard
of the fact that her little clock had struck eight of the morning,
while her bed was still unmade. The Tiverton folk who disapproved of
her shiftlessness in letting the golden hours, run thus to waste, did
grudgingly commend her for airing well. Her bed might not even be
spread up till sundown, but the sheets were always hanging from her
little side window, in fine weather, flapping dazzlingly in the sun;
and sometimes her feather-bed lay, the whole day long, on the green
slope outside, called by Dilly her "spring," only because the snow