Mrs. Marigold?"

I moved down to the end of the store and weighed and tied up in brown paper the "three pounds of white sugar to make cake for the sewin'-society," which the lad had asked for. A little girl came in for a pound of bar-soap, and I attended to her wants. Then another boy, with a basket, came in a hurry for a dozen of eggs. You see, ours was one of those village-stores that combine all things.

While I waited on these insignificant customers father measured off great quantities of white goods for the two ladies; and I strained my ears to hear every word that was said. They asked father if he was going to New York soon? He said, in about ten days. Then Mrs. Marigold confided to him that they wanted him to purchase twenty-five yards of white corded silk.

If every cord in that whole piece of silk had been drawing about my throat I couldn't have[75] felt more suffocated. I sat right down, I felt so faint, in a tub of butter. I had just sense enough left to remember that I had on my new spring lavender pants. The butter was disgustingly soft and mushy.

[75]

"Come here, John, and add up this bill," called father.

"I can't; I'm sick."

I had got up from the tub and was leaning on the counter—I was pale, I know.

"Why, what's the matter?" he asked.

Belle cast one guilty look in my direction. "It's the spring weather, I dare say," she said softly to my parent.

I sneaked out of the back door and went across the yard to the house to change my pants. I was sick, and I did not emerge from my room until the dinner-bell rang.

I went down then, and found father, usually so good-natured, looking cross, as he carved the roast beef.

"You will never be good for anything, John," was his salutation—"at least, not as a clerk. I've a good mind to write to Captain Hall to take you to the North Pole."

"What's up, father?"

"Oh, nothing!" very sarcastically. "That white sugar you sent Mrs. Smith was table-salt, and she made a whole batch of cake out of it before she discovered her mistake. She was out of temper when she flew in the store, I tell you.[76] I had not only to give her the 

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