don't know that it would work at all--maybe her mother wouldn't be
willing, and maybe she wouldn't be willing herself--but I was
thinking that you were as good a housekeeper as Caroline Liscom,
and--you might have the girl in here once in a while and teach her."

"I will do it," said I at once,--"if I can, that is."

I found out that I could. The poor child was only too glad to come to
my house and take a few lessons in housekeeping. I waylaid her when
she was going past one day, and broached the subject delicately. I
said it was a good idea for a young girl to learn as much as she
could about keeping a house nice before she had one of her own, and
Harriet blushed as red as a rose and thanked me, and arranged to come
for her first lesson the very next morning. I got a large gingham
apron for her, and we began. I gave her a lesson in bread-making that
very day, and found her an apt pupil. I told her that she would make
a very good housekeeper--I should not wonder if as good as Mrs.
Liscom, who was, I considered, the best in the village; and she
blushed again and kissed me.

Louisa and I had been a little worried as to what Mrs. Jameson would
say; but we need not have been. Mrs. Jameson was strenuously engaged
in uprooting poison-ivy vines, which grew thickly along the walls
everywhere in the village. I must say it seemed Scriptural to me, and
made me think better in one way of Mrs. Jameson, since it did require
considerable heroism.

Luckily, old Martin was one of the few who are exempt from the
noxious influence of poison-ivy, and he pulled up the roots with
impunity, but I must say without the best success. Poison-ivy is a