“To take ’em off an’ carry ’em over our arms,” piped Susan Ellen, without comment, but in the interest of alighting and finding themselves afoot upon the pavement the shawls were forgotten. The children stood at the doorway of a shop while their father went inside, and they tried to see what the Topham shapes of bonnets were like, as their mother had advised them; but everything was exciting and confusing, and they could arrive at no decision. When Mr. Hilton came out with a hat in his hand to be seen in a better light, Katy whispered that she wished he would buy a shiny one like Judge Masterson’s; but her father only smiled and shook his head, and said that they were plain folks, he and Katy. There were dry-goods for sale in the same shop, and a young clerk who was measuring linen kindly pulled off some pretty labels with gilded edges and gay pictures, and gave them to the little girls, to their exceeding joy. He may have had small sisters at home, this friendly lad, for he took pains to find two pretty blue boxes besides, and was rewarded by their beaming gratitude. It was a famous day; they even became used to seeing so many people pass. The village was full of its morning activity, and Susan Ellen gained a new respect for her father, and an increased sense of her own consequence, because even in Topham several persons knew him and called him familiarly by name. The meeting with an old man who had once been a neighbor seemed to give Mr. Hilton the greatest pleasure. The old man called to them from a house doorway as they were passing, and they all went in. The children seated themselves wearily on the wooden step, but their father shook his old friend eagerly by the hand, and declared that he was delighted to see him so well and enjoying the fine weather. “Oh, yes,” said the old man, in a feeble, quavering voice, “I’m astonishin’ well for my age. I don’t complain, John, I don’t complain.” They talked long together of people whom they had known in the past, and Katy, being a little tired, was glad to rest, and sat still with her hands folded, looking about the front yard. There were some kinds of flowers that she never had seen before. “This is the one that looks like my mother,” her father said, and touched Katy’s shoulder to remind her to stand up and let herself be seen. “Judge Masterson saw the resemblance; we met him at his gate this morning.” “Yes, she certain does look like your mother, John,” said the old man, looking pleasantly at Katy, who found that she liked him better than at first. “She does, certain; the best of young folks is, they remind us of the old ones. ’Tis nateral to cling to life, folks say, but for me, I git impatient at times. Most everybody’s gone now, an’ I want to be goin’. ’Tis somethin’ before me, an’ I want to have it over with. I want to be there ’long o’ the rest o’ the folks. I expect to last quite a while though; I may see ye couple o’ times more, John.”