“To Pheladelphy, ma’am,” said Betsey, looking quite young and gay, and wearing a townish and unfamiliar air that upheld her words. “All ought to go that can; why, you feel’s if you’d be’n all round the world. I guess I’ve got enough to think of and tell ye for the rest o’ my days. I’ve always wanted to go somewheres. I wish you’d be’n there, I do so. I’ve talked with folks from Chiny an’ the back o’ Pennsylvany; and I see folks way from Australy that ’peared as well as anybody; an’ I see how they made spool cotton, an’ sights o’ other things; an’ I spoke with a doctor that lives down to the beach in the summer, an’ he offered to come up ’long in the first of August, an’ see what he can do for Peggy’s eyesight. There was di’monds there as big as pigeon’s eggs; an’ I met with Mis’ Abby Fletcher from South Byfleet depot; an’ there was hogs there that weighed risin’ thirteen hunderd”— “I want to know,” said Mrs. Lavina Dow and Peggy Bond, together. “Well, ’twas a great exper’ence for a person,” added Lavina, turning ponderously, in spite of herself, to give a last wistful look at the smiling waters of the pond. “I don’t know how soon I be goin’ to settle down,” proclaimed the rustic sister of Sindbad. “What’s for the good o’ one’s for the good of all. You just wait till we’re setting together up in the old shed chamber! You know, my dear Mis’ Katy Strafford give me a han’some present o’ money that day she come to see me; and I’d be’n a-dreamin’ by night an’ day o’ seein’ that Centennial; and when I come to think on ’t I felt sure somebody ought to go from this neighborhood, if ’twas only for the good o’ the rest; and I thought I’d better be the one. I wa’n’t goin’ to ask the selec’men neither. I’ve come back with one-thirty-five in money, and I see everything there, an’ I fetched ye all a little somethin’; but I’m full o’ dust now, an’ pretty nigh beat out. I never see a place more friendly than Pheladelphy; but ’tain’t natural to a Byfleet person to be always walkin’ on a level. There, now, Peggy, you take my bundle-handkercher and the basket, and let Mis’ Dow sag on to me. I’ll git her along twice as easy.” With this the small elderly company set forth triumphant toward the poor-house, across the wide green field. THE DULHAM LADIES. To be leaders of society in the town of Dulham was as satisfactory to Miss Dobin and Miss Lucinda Dobin as if Dulham were London itself. Of late years, though they would not allow themselves to suspect such treason, the most ill-bred of the younger people in the village made fun of them behind their backs, and laughed at their treasured summer mantillas, their mincing steps, and the shape of their parasols.