her skirts with superior virtue and tied a knot in her thread.

"How did she get burned?" asked Araminta, eagerly.

"Gossip," said Miss Mehitable, sententiously, "does a lot of harm and
makes a lot of folks miserable. It's a good thing to keep away from,
and if I ever hear of your gossiping about anybody, I'll shut you up
in your room for two weeks and keep you on bread and water."

Araminta trembled. "What is gossiping, Aunt Hitty?" she asked in a
timid, awe-struck tone.

"Talking about folks," explained Miss Hitty. "Tellin' things about
'em they wouldn't tell themselves."

It occurred to Araminta that much of the conversation at the
crossroads might appropriately be classed under that head, but, of
course, Aunt Hitty knew what she was talking about. She remembered
the last quilting Aunt Hitty had given, when the Ladies' Aid Society
had been invited, en masse, to finish off the quilt Araminta's
rebellious fingers had just completed. One of the ladies had been
obliged to leave earlier than the rest, and----

"I don't believe," thought Araminta, "that Mrs. Gardner would have
told how her son ran away from home, nor that she didn't dust her bed
slats except at house-cleaning time, nor that they ate things other
people would give to the pigs."

"I expect there'll be a lot of questions asked about Evelina,"
observed Miss Mehitable, breaking in rudely upon Araminta's train of