“How doors are opened!” she exclaimed to herself. “Here I’ve been so poor an’ distressed at beginnin’ the year with nothin’, as it were, that I couldn’t think o’ even goin’ to make poor old Aunt Cynthy a friendly call. I’ll manage to make some kind of a little pleasure too, an’ somethin’ for dear Mis’ Hand. ‘Use what you’ve got,’ mother always used to say when every sort of an emergency come up, an’ I may only have wishes to give, but I’ll make ’em good ones!” II. The first day of the year was clear and bright, as if it were a New Year’s pattern of what winter can be at its very best. The two friends were prepared for changes of weather, and met each other well wrapped in their winter cloaks and shawls, with sufficient brown barége veils tied securely over their bonnets. They ignored for some time the plain truth that each carried something under her arm; the shawls were rounded out suspiciously, especially Miss Pendexter’s, but each respected the other’s air of secrecy. The narrow road was frozen in deep ruts, but a smooth-trodden little foot-path that ran along its edge was very inviting to the wayfarers. Mrs. Hand walked first and Miss Pendexter followed, and they were talking busily nearly all the way, so that they had to stop for breath now and then at the tops of the little hills. It was not a hard walk; there were a good many almost level stretches through the woods, in spite of the fact that they should be a very great deal higher when they reached Mrs. Dallett’s door. “I do declare, what a nice day ’tis, an’ such pretty footin’!” said Mrs. Hand, with satisfaction. “Seems to me as if my feet went o’ themselves; gener’lly I have to toil so when I walk that I can’t enjoy nothin’ when I get to a place.” “It’s partly this beautiful bracin’ air,” said Abby Pendexter. “Sometimes such nice air comes just before a fall of snow. Don’t it seem to make anybody feel young again and to take all your troubles away?” Mrs. Hand was a comfortable, well-to-do soul, who seldom worried about anything, but something in her companion’s tone touched her heart, and she glanced sidewise and saw a pained look in Abby Pendexter’s thin face. It was a moment for confidence. “Why, you speak as if something distressed your mind, Abby,” said the elder woman kindly. “I ain’t one that has myself on my mind as a usual thing, but it does seem now as if I was goin’ to have it very hard,” said Abby. “Well, I’ve been anxious before.” “Is it anything wrong about your property?” Mrs. Hand ventured to ask. “Only that I ain’t got any,” answered Abby, trying to speak gayly. “’Twas all I could do to pay my last quarter’s rent, twelve dollars. I sold my hens, all but this one that had run away at the time, an’ now I’m carryin’ her up to Aunt Cynthy, roasted just as nice as I know how.”