ready to split wood, hoe in the garden, or do any of the dozen things
that he had never been known to do before, he was a never-failing subject
of thought and wonderment to her. Watching him closely, the only thing
she could finally settle on as the cause of the change which she found in
him was, that he now went every Sabbath morning to the Sabbath school.
The mystery must be hidden there. Having decided that matter, Kitty
speedily resolved that she would go there herself, and see what they did.
Many were the kind hearts that had tried to coax her into that same
Sabbath school, and had failed. But this Saturday afternoon's gazing out
of the window, with a wonderfully sober face, had ended in her
exclaiming,--

"I say, mother, I want a needle and thread."

"What do you want with a needle and thread?" asked Mrs. Lewis, stirring
away at some gruel in a tin basin, and not even glancing up.

"I want to mend my dress; it's torn this way and that, and looks awful. I
want some green thread, the colour of this wide stripe."

Now for a minute the gruel was forgotten, and Mrs. Lewis looked at Kitty
in amazement.

"Dear me!" she said at last; "I don't know what will happen next. It
can't be possible that you are going to work to mend your own dress
without being scolded about it for a week, and then made to do it."

"Yes, I am, too; I ain't going to look like a rag-bag another hour. And
I'm going to wash out my sun-bonnet and iron it; then I mean to go over
to that Sunday school to-morrow. I ain't heard any singing since I was