pretensions to religion and goodness, but who the boys strongly suspected was not very compassionate to the poor.

"Please," said Willie, "give us a little flour and raisins for our mother to make a thanksgiving pudding with to-morrow." His answer was a slam of the door in his face.

"Let us go to Granny Horton's," said one of the boys; "she has not gone to bed yet."

"O," said Willie, "you know she has nothing but what mother sends her, or some of the neighbors. It would be a shame. I carried her a pair of chickens this morning, and some flour and raisins; and it is a shame to beg of her, she is so kind. But won't it be funny if she gives us something, when Squire Marsh would not; at any rate, she'll not slam the door in our faces. Come, let's go quickly, before she puts out her little light and goes to bed. I bet she'll give us one of her chickens. But let us take whatever she gives us, just for the fun, and for fear we should be found out."

Willie was to be the spokesman. He felt rather queerly at first; but the fun of the thing was too tempting, so he agreed to speak. He was dressed as a girl, and wrapped me closely about him, as if he was very cold. He had on an old straw bonnet, and his face was painted, so that she could not recognize him, he knew.

They knocked at Granny Horton's door, and she, in a kind, gentle voice, replied, "Come in!" Willie, pretending to be a girl, told how she and her brother and sister had come from the farther part of the town, where they lived in the woods with a mother who was very old, and had hardly any thing to eat; and how they wanted something good to carry to her for thanksgiving day—a little flour, or a chicken, or any thing; that it was too hard for his dear mother to have nothing but beans on that day; that beans were what they lived on commonly.

He looked so mournful, and spoke in such a mournful tone that the dear old woman, after thinking one moment, said to him, "I have two chickens, a quart of flour, and two pounds of raisins, sent to me by a good lady this morning, and brought to me by a real good little boy called Willie. I can't ask their leave, but I guess they would not scold me for giving your mother half of what he brought me; so you shall have it, dear. 'It's more blessed to give than to receive.' 'The Lord gave and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be His name.'"

While she was saying over these blessed words, she was busy dividing the flour and the raisins, and putting them and the chicken into the basket which Willie gave her.

They all thanked the old woman very kindly, and went off with her flour and chicken.

"What shall we do with it all?" said they, as soon as they were out of the house.

"Let us," said Willie, "beg all we can every where, and get our basket full, and carry it back to her, and, when she is asleep, get into her house again, and put it on her hearth. I know how to open the window on the outside when she thinks it fast."

This was a good joke for the boys; so they went from house to house, and, except at the squire's and one other place, got something from every one, till, at last, their basket was full. Then they went home, and got a peck of apples from their mother.

Willie then led the way to Granny Horton's again. They looked in at the window, and, by the light of the few embers still burning, saw the good woman asleep in her great, old-fashioned chair, with her spectacles on, and by her side a little stand on which lay her Bible open at the place where she had been reading.

"I can get in," said Willie, "and put the basket down by her side before she wakes."

Accordingly, he went to a little window in the back part of the house, climbed in, came softly into the room where she was, and set the baskets, all running over with good things, down on the hearth. Willie had hardly got back to the window, when the good woman waked up; and there, directly before her eyes, stood the baskets. She took them up, and looked at them for some minutes before she took any thing out. At last, she began to examine their contents. When she came to her chicken and flour and raisins, in the very papers in which she had wrapped them; she looked up and clasped her hands with such astonishment, with such a look of wonder and gratitude, that the boys, in their glee, laughed outright, and so loud that she heard them.

She ran to the window, but they were gone; and she never knew how it was that her chicken and flour brought her back seven fold.

When next the cook went to see her, with me on,—I was every body's cloak,—the old lady told her the whole story of finding the chicken and flour, and so many other good things with them. The secret was kept; and it was Granny Horton's firm faith that it was the wings of angels she heard when she went to the window. Indeed she thought she had seen the wings, for as Willie turned to run, he forgot to hold me tight, and the wind blew me up so as to hide him entirely, and she took me for great dark wings.

I fear you may be weary of my story. I have much more that I could relate, but I have already been too long.

I am, as you see, ragged and worn, but the dear family have an affection for me still, as well as for all the rest of us; and so I am allowed to remain here in this most respectable company. I trust the wig will now give us his history for which we have waited so long."

"There is time enough before eight o'clock for the story of the wig," said Frank, "if you can remember it, Mother. He ought to tell his story now, as he promised."

"As the wig began to speak," said their mother, "he gave a slight hitch on one side, just as if some one pushed him up a little, and then, after a short pause, began thus: "You will be astonished, perhaps, to know that it is more than a hundred years since I first saw the light. None of you have lived so long, or seen as much as I have. I cannot tell all I have seen or known. It would take too long, and weary you too much. I can only give a slight sketch of my long life.

In the year seventeen hundred and fifty, the baby head upon which I grew came into this strange world in which we live. O, how happy was the mother who saw me for the first time! How full was her joy when she stroked the small head of her little girl, and exclaimed, "How beautiful and soft her hair is! softer than velvet or satin." Even then, every one said, "What a beautiful head of hair! What a lovely baby!"

The little girl whose head I adorned was the daughter of a poor vicar who lived with his wife in an obscure country town in England.

Alice was their fifth child, but their only daughter. She was very beautiful, and, I may say it surely without vanity now, I was her greatest ornament. I was of a beautiful auburn color, and fell in thick clusters all over her happy, gentle head, and shaded her laughter-loving face. After a day of hard work, how fond her mother was of taking her little pet in her lap, and twisting up every curl in nice order under her white linen night-cap, before putting her to bed! Her father, too, would wind my ringlets around his great fingers, made hard and rough with toil in the garden, and would kiss every one of them, and pray God to bless the young head on which they grew.

As the dear head grew larger, I grew larger and thicker. Every one who saw me noticed me. One would say, "It looks like a pot of hyacinths"; another, "It has caught the sunshine and kept it."

What a pleasant life I led! When Alice grew a large girl, she became something of a romp, and one of her favorite amusements was to go to the top of a hill near her father's house, when there was a high wind, and let it blow through her curls, and sing and shout and dance from the fulness of her joy. When she came home, she would say "Mother, the wind has been combing my hair."

O the horrid combing that I had to endure every morning! One must be a head of curly hair to know how terrible is a comb.

If you will not think me too long, I must talk a little more about the dear Alice, and