* * * * * SKETCHES OF LIFE IN OUR VILLAGE. NO. I.—WHAT THERE WAS TO LIKE IN HATTIE ATHERTON. BY GIFTIE. “You seem to have a great deal to say lately about this Miss Hattie Atherton,” said my brother, looking up from his book as I entered the parlor, after escorting to the door a friend who had been making me a morning call. “Well,” said I, “I hope you have no objection.” “Objection—no indeed. But what is there in Miss Hattie, that you all like so much? Your friends have been perfectly absorbed in admiration of her for the last three days.” “If you knew her you would not wonder that we are all glad to have her at home again. She has been absent four years at a boarding-school, and as she is reported to be wonderfully accomplished her return makes quite a sensation in our quiet circle. That is the reason you have heard her name so frequently mentioned.” “A regular paragon of boarding-school accomplishments, I suppose,” said Fred, with his most scornful sneer. “She doesn’t know a cow from a sheep—works worsted dogs—paints in colors _excessively watery_—considers her father and mother quite countrified and vulgar—and knows enough of the languages to Frenchify her name into Harri_ette_, or into the more unmeaning diminutive of H-a-t-t-i-e.” “You are really savage,” replied I, laughing, “but, my good sir, you are quite mistaken in your enumeration, for though she had adopted the diminutive of her somewhat stately name, she is innocent of working worsted dogs, and she rejoices in the knowledge that of the two animals, the cow is the largest. Really, Fred, she is a very lovely girl, perfectly unaffected, and exulting like a freed bird to visit again her old haunts, “‘In the grove and by the river.’” “Ah, she is one of that sort, is she? Raves of nature and falls on her knees to a pigweed. For my part, I could never imagine why a boy wasn’t just as natural as an alder bush.” “You are really impertinent, Fred, to talk so about my friends,” said I, a little vexed. “Beg your pardon, sis; but you may depend upon it, all boarding-school girls belong to one of two classes—the smart and affected, or the soft and sentimental. You, my dear Mary, are the only one I ever knew to pass the ordeal without being spoiled.” “Which escape, I presume, you impute entirely to liberal share of advice bestowed by my wise brother. I am quite provoked with you, for your unsparing sarcasms on women.” “Ah, if they were only all like you,” replied Fred, rising to come to me, and then falling back on the sofa with a growl at the pain the attempt had caused his sprained ankle. Gentle reader, that sprain, which had confined him four days to the sofa, was the sole reason why my good-natured, sensible brother was so “uncommon” cross.