"Flavia, most tender of her own good name,

Is rather careless of her sister's fame!

Her superfluity the poor supplies,

But if she touch a character it dies."--Cowper.

It was characteristic of Marthy Perkins and her continual pursuit of

pleasure, that she should wade through snowdrifts to Squire Bartlett's

and ask for a lift in his sleigh. The Squire's family were going to a

surprise party to be given to one of the neighbor's, and Marthy was as

determined about going as a debutante.

She came in, covered with snow, hooded, shawled and coated till she

resembled a huge cocoon. The Squire placed a big armchair for her near

the fire, and Marshy sat down, but not without disdaining Anna's offers

to remove her wraps. She sniffed at Anna--no other word will express

it--and savagely clutched her big old-fashioned muff when Anna would

have taken it from her to dry it of the snow.

The sleighbells jingled merrily as the different parties drove by,

singing, whistling, laughing, on their way to the party. The church

choir, snugly installed in "Doc" Wiggins' sleigh, stopped at the

Squire's to "thaw out," and try a step or two; Rube Whipple, the town

constable, giving them his famous song, "All Bound 'Round with a Woolen

String."

Rube was, as usual, the pivot around which the merry-making centered.

A few nights before, burglars had broken into the postoffice and

carried off the stamps, and the town constable was, as usual, the last

one to hear of it. On the night in question, he had spent the evening

at the corner grocery store with a couple of his old pals, the stove

answering the purpose of a rather large bulls-eye, at which they

expectorated, with conscientious regularity, from time to time. Seth

Holcomb, Marthy Perkins' faithful swain, had been of the corner grocery

party.

"Well, Constable, hear you and Seth helped keep the stove warm the

other night, while thieves walked off with the postoffice," Marthy

announced; "what I'd like to know is, how much bitters, rheumatism

bitters, you had during the evening?"

"Well, Marthy Perkins, you ought to be the last to throw it up to Seth

that he's obliged to spend his evenings round a corner grocery--that's

adding insult to injury."

"Insult to injury I reckon can stand, Rube; it's when you add Seth's

bitters that it staggers."

But Seth, who never minded Marthy's stings and jibes, only remarked:

"The recipy for them bitters was given to me by a blame good doctor."




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