"No, she can't," said Ian, trying to look stern, but breaking into little twinkling smiles at the mouth corners. "She can't, because the moles' stockings haven't any more got holes!" and he pulled something from his blouse and spread it in my lap, Richard doing likewise. There were two stockings mended, fearfully and wonderfully, to be sure, and quite unwearable, but still legally mended. "I don't understand," I said, while the boys, seeing my puzzled expression, clapped their hands and hopped painfully about as well as they were able. Then Martha Corkle emerged from the background and explained: "The boys they felt most terrible in their minds, Mrs. Evan, soon after you'd went (their sore knees, I think, also keepin' them in sight of their doings), and they begged me, Mrs. Evan, wouldn't I mend the stockings, which I would most cheerfully, only takin' the same as not to be your idea, mum. So I says, says I, somebody havin' to be punished, your ma's goin' to do it to take the punishment herself, that is, in lest you do it your own selves instead. So, says I, I'll mend one stocking of each if you do the other, Mrs. Evan, and no disrespect intended. "I borried Effie's embroidery rings and set the two holes for them and run them in one way, leavin' them the fillin' to do, which they have, sittin' the whole afternoon at it most perseverin'." "Richard did his one stitch, but I did mine four stitch; it ate up the hole quicker, and it's more different," quoth Ian, waving his stocking, into the knee of which he had managed to introduce a sort of kindergarten weaving pattern. "But mine looks more like Martha's, doesn't it, mother?" pleaded patient Richard, who, though the threads were drawn and gathered, had kept to the regular one up and one down throughout. Then the signal of the smoke arose against the opal of the twilight sky, and we went out hand in hand, all three happy, to meet our breadwinner. Late that night, when all the household slept, I added a little package to my treasures in the attic desk,--two long stockings with queer darned knees,--and upon the paper band that bound them is written a date and "The Sweating of the Corn." IX A WAYSIDE COMEDY _May 5th_. Madame Etiquette has entered this peaceful village. Not, however, as the court lady of the old French regime, but travelling in the wake of the Whirlpoolers under dubious aliases, being sometimes called Good Form and at other The Correct Thing. At present she is having a hand-to-hand encounter with New England Prejudice, a once stalwart old lady of firm will, but now considerably weakened by age and the incessant arguing of her great-grandchildren. The result of the conflict is quite uncertain, for actually even the Sunday question hangs in the balance; while the spectacle is most amusing to the outsider and embarrassing to the referees.