"That is very kind, indeed!" replied the provoking spinster in the same happy voice; "and I assure you that I do believe my brother likes to see me very much, and what is more remarkable still, I have more than once fancied that my niece Sophy looked rather pleased when I came in." "And so did Martha, I am sure, ... and so did I, sister Betsy; you can't deny that: ... then why don't you come to see us oftener?" "For no reason in the world," replied Miss Betsy gaily, "but because I like to stay at home better." "So much the worse for us, ... so much the worse for us, sister Betsy.... If you had been to see us, you must have found out what I am now come to tell you, and that is, that poor dear Josiah is in very great difficulty indeed; and though we generally, I must say, bear all our hardships remarkably well, yet just at this time it comes upon us with unbearable severity." "Does it indeed, Mrs. Compton?... But you have never yet turned your head to look at my bees; ... for my part, I can sit and watch them by the hour together, if my book is not too interesting: ... careful little fellows! It is but just three o'clock," (standing up as she spoke to look out upon a sundial that glittered in the middle of the grass-plat,) "but just past three, and they are beginning to come home with their work already." Mrs. Compton felt what the French call _desoutée_, but she recovered herself, and returned to the charge. "You are a happy woman, sister Betsy," said she, "with nothing to care about but your books and your bees!" "I am _very_ happy indeed!" replied the maiden, in an accent that well befitted the words; "and so are my bees too, for it is beautiful weather, and one can almost see the flowers grow, they come on so finely." "But I want to talk to you, sister Betsy, about our troubles.... You don't know how I slave and fag to make our poor girls look like somebody.... No Saturday night ever comes that I do not sit up till past midnight striving to make their things decent for Sunday!" "Do you indeed, Mrs. Compton?... I was told that they wore pink bows in their bonnets last Sunday, and green the Sunday before; ... but I did not know that you sat up to change them." "Change them!... God bless you!... I wish that was all I have got to do.... Why, I had to wash those pink ribbons, and then dip them in saucer pink, and then rub them very nearly dry, till my poor arms almost came off, and then iron them, and then sew in the wire ribbon again, and then make them up.... I'll leave you to judge how much sleep I was likely to get; for I could not have the bonnets till after the girls came home from the evening parade, where they had been with Mrs. Colonel Williamson--they never go to parade without one of the regimental ladies as a chaperon." "But why don't the young ladies rub their ribbons a little themselves?" asked Miss Betsy.