with straight, stiff backs; queer, cracked jugs and bottles, and painted teacups with the handles broken off; and funny old spelling-books and school-readers, all inscribed, in beautiful handwriting, on their yellow fly-leaves:

“John Burbank, his book.”

Linda knew that the John Burbank who had learned his lessons from these old books must have been the deacon “when he was a boy,” and not her young friend, Johnny.

There were several old-fashioned wooden chests among the treasures of this delightful garret, and Linda hesitated to open them at first; but finally she called to mind that she had been given permission to “rummage” as much as she pleased.

One chest, painted green, stood near the narrow window, which threw a checkered square of sunshine upon the garret floor, and as Linda raised the cover she gave a little scream of rapture, for it seemed almost as if she had found a broken rainbow, there was such a glitter of gay colors in the sunlight.

“Oh! oh!” she cried, “what lovely, lovely pieces for a crazy quilt!”

For the old chest was nearly filled with scraps of silk and satin of every shape and size, from bits not over an inch wide to the large, three-cornered pieces, of which there seemed to be a great number, left in cutting trimming-folds “on the bias,” as Linda knew, for she had seen many such remnants proudly displayed by those of her girl friends who happened to be in the good graces of Miss Cranshaw, the village dressmaker. But such brocades and stripes, such “plaid” and “watered” and “figured” silks, such brilliant shades of color as she found among the contents of that chest, her eyes had never looked upon before.

“I wonder if these are pieces of Deacon Burbank’s mother’s dresses?” thought

Linda, as she turned them over, exclaiming, every other minute, “Oh, how pretty!” or “Oh, what a beauty!” for every new piece that she took up seemed prettier than the last. “Why, she must have had as many as Queen Victoria. Why don’t they wear such colors now? Most of the silk dresses that Miss Cranshaw makes are black, or brown, or sage-green, or some other sober shade; but these are all so bright. Oh, what a lovely blue!”

“It is a handsome piece of silk, ain’t it? That was the dress Miss Polly Newcome wore to the inaugeration ball at Washington, ’most forty years ago. They don’t have no such silks in these days.”

Mrs. Deacon Burbank had mounted the garret stairs with footsteps far from noiseless, being, as she said, a “hefty” old lady; but Linda had been too much absorbed to notice her approach until she spoke.

“Oh, Mrs. Burbank! What beautiful pieces!” cried Linda. “Where did they all come from?”

“Why, they come from all ’round, my dear,” said Mrs. Burbank, sitting down with Linda, beside the green chest. “You see, my girls used to take in dressmakin’, when they was young, and the pieces kinder gathered an’ gathered. The girls used to keep the silk pieces separate, thinkin’ they might do suthin’ with ’em sometime; but they never did. They was always too busy to do much putterin’ work. So the pieces have laid there ever sence the girls left home. They all got married, many a long year ago, my girls. Cecilia went to New York, and Evaline lives down in Pennsylvaney—she’s got to be quite an old woman herself now; and Nancy Jane, she’s layin’ in the cemetery over to East Berlin, with her own little girl buried ’long side of her,” said the old lady, sighing. “But they used to be called the best dressmakers there was anywhere round these parts; folks used to come from as far off as Tolland County to have their nice dresses made by the Burbank girls. Miss Polly Newcome went to Washington the winter that her father was elected to the Senate. She was a great beauty, Miss Polly was, an’ they made everything of her in Washington. But my girls had the makin’ of all her new clothes, ’fore she went. This was a dress she wore to a grand dinner-party that was given to her father, Senator Newcome.”

And the old lady picked out a scrap of marvelous brocade, with silver-white roses on a wine-colored ground, and smoothed it on her knee.

“This was the one she wore to the President’s reception”—selecting a bit of rose-colored satin, striped with sky-blue velvet; “and this,” she continued, smoothing out a long strip of changeable silk in green and ruby tints, “was another dinner dress. Here’s a piece of plaid silk that was made up for Squire Harney’s wife, when she was goin’ to Europe; and here’s a piece of Mrs. Doctor Thorne’s dress, that she had made on purpose to wear to a grand party over in Tolland.”

This last was a good-sized square of bright yellow silk, with polka-dots of mazarine blue.

Linda, looking at the gorgeous fabric with admiring eyes, exclaimed:

“I never saw such pieces in all my life! They would make the loveliest crazy quilt!”

“What kind of a quilt, my dear?”

“A crazy quilt,” said Linda, laughing. “Haven’t you ever seen one, Mrs. Burbank? Fred says the person was crazy who first invented them; but I think they’re just as pretty as they can be. It takes a great many pieces of silk, though, to make a bed-quilt, and some of the girls only make sofa-pillows and such things.”

“Oh, you mean patchwork. The land!” said Mrs. Burbank, “I used to make silk patchwork more than sixty years ago. It was all the style then, but I didn’t s’pose they ever done it now.”

“Oh, yes; it is all the style now,” said Linda, with a smile.

“Do tell! I want to know if you like to piece patchwork?” said the old lady, looking over her spectacles at Linda’s girlish face, with its gentle eyes and frame of soft, brown hair. “I declare for’t, you look just as my Nancy Jane did when she was your age! If you want them pieces, child, you can have ’em; I ain’t got any use for ’em, and don’t s’pose I ever shall have. I’m too old to piece patchwork, myself—my eyesight ain’t what it used to be.”

For a moment Linda was speechless with delight, but finally she found her voice, and cried out:

“Oh, Mrs. Burbank! All those lovely crazy pieces! Do you really mean to give them to me?”

“Of course I do, and I’m real glad to see ye so pleased, my dear. Them silk pieces have laid in that chest years an’ years, doin’ nobody any good; an’ they shan’t lay there no longer, if they can make a little girl so happy.”

And the good old lady looked happy herself as she opened another chest, and, taking out an old pillow-case of home-spun linen, began to fill it with the wondrous “crazy pieces.”

When she had crowded them all in and tied the bag with a piece of twine, she said:

“Now, you can take ’em right along with you, an’ whenever your father happens to come this way ag’in, he can bring me back the piller-case, for it was one of Mother Burbank’s, and I shouldn’t want to lose it. I declare for ’t!” she added, “I forgot all about your father, child, I got so took up with lookin’ over them pieces. He’s got the buggy mended, an’ he’s come back after you, so you must come right down. I want you an’ he should have dinner ’fore you go; it’s all ready.”

And happy Linda went down to the kitchen, where she found her father and Johnny, and Deacon Burbank, who had just come home to dinner.

Mr. Trafton was hungry, and quite willing to take dinner at the deacon’s, instead of waiting till they arrived at East Berlin.

They all became very well acquainted in the course of the meal, and Mr. Trafton promised to bring Linda to see Mrs. Burbank, whenever he came that way.

“And I will