“If you think this is a laughing matter, Mrs. Jennings, I do not,” said Mrs. Diantha, and again her dislike and sorrow at the sight of that sweet, mirthful face was over her. It was a face to be loved, and hers was not. “Why, I went up-stairs and kissed the child good night, and never suspected,” laughed Lily's mother. “I got Aunt Laura's curly, light wig for her,” explained Lily, and Mrs. Jennings laughed again. It was not long before Amelia, in her gingham, went home, led by her mother--her mother, who was trembling with weakness now. Mrs. Diantha did not scold. She did not speak, but Amelia felt with wonder her little hand held very tenderly by her mother's long fingers. When at last she was undressed and in bed, Mrs. Diantha, looking very pale, kissed her, and so did both grandmothers. Amelia, being very young and very tired, went to sleep. She did not know that that night was to mark a sharp turn in her whole life. Thereafter she went to school “dressed like the best,” and her mother petted her as nobody had ever known her mother could pet. It was not so very long afterward that Amelia, out of her own improvement in appearance, developed a little stamp of individuality. One day Lily wore a white frock with blue ribbons, and Amelia wore one with coral pink. It was a particular day in school; there was company, and tea was served. “I told you I was going to wear blue ribbons,” Lily whispered to Amelia. Amelia smiled lovingly back at her. “Yes, I know, but I thought I would wear pink.” THE COCK OF THE WALK DOWN the road, kicking up the dust until he marched, soldier-wise, in a cloud of it, that rose and grimed his moist face and added to the heavy, brown powder upon the wayside weeds and flowers, whistling a queer, tuneless thing, which yet contained definite sequences--the whistle of a bird rather than a boy--approached Johnny Trumbull, aged ten, small of his age, but accounted by his mates mighty. Johnny came of the best and oldest family in the village, but it was in some respects an undesirable family for a boy. In it survived, as fossils survive in ancient nooks and crannies of the earth, old traits of race, unchanged by time and environment. Living in a house lighted by electricity, the mental conception of it was to the Trumbulls as the conception of candles; with telephones at hand, they unconsciously still conceived of messages delivered with the old saying, “Ride, ride,” etc., and relays of post-horses. They locked their doors, but still had latch-strings in mind. Johnny's father was a physician, adopting modern methods of surgery and prescription, yet his mind harked back to cupping and calomel, and now and then he swerved aside from his path across the field of the present into the future and plunged headlong, as if for fresh air, into the traditional past, and often with brilliant results.