standing joke was by no means a bad one when he described her as "not
actually burdened with fat." Yes, she was a very cleanly, very thin,
very prudent, very particular person, that never joined in any sports or
amusements; never joked or participated in any happy events in a happy,
joyous fashion, but lived unobtrusively, and, I may say, coldly, in her
own prim, cold, bloodless, little world.

"Gracious me!" exclaimed the deacon, as he looked at the package.
"Gracious me! what has got into Mirandy?" And he looked scrutinizingly
at the little, fine, thin, faintly-traced inscription on the package, as
if the writer had begrudged the ink that must be expended on the
letters, or from a subtle and mystic self-sympathy had made the
chirography faint, delicate, and attenuated as her own self.

"Gracious me!" reiterated Deacon Tubman, as he proceeded to untie the
knot in the pale blue ribbon smoothly bound around the package. "Who
ever knew Mirandy to make a present before?" and the deacon was so
surprised at what had taken place that, for a moment, he doubted the
evidence of his own senses. "And put it in my boot, too, ha, ha!" And
the deacon stopped undoing the parcel, and, lying back in the chair,
roared at the thought of the prim, modest, particular Miranda
perpetrating such a joke. And when the wrapping of the package was at
last undone, for every corner and crease of it was as carefully turned
and as sharply edged as if the smoothing iron had passed over
them,--will wonders ever cease in this startling world of ours?--out
dropped a night-cap! Yes, a night-cap, delicately and deftly crocheted
in warm, woolen stuff of a rich cardinal color.

"Ha, ha," laughed the deacon, as he held the cap between his thumb and
forefinger of one hand up before his eyes, while he rubbed his bald