without bruising them. But, long ere the basket was filled she would tire of the work and, setting it on the ground, run back into the house.

"And so you think you are helping, Mary," John said, laughing, when the girl returned for the fourth time, with an empty basket.

"Helping, John! Of course I am--ever so much. Helping you, and helping them at the house, and carrying empty baskets. I consider myself the most active of the party."

"Active, certainly, Mary! but if you do not help them, in stringing and hanging the figs, more than you help me, I think you might as well leave it alone."

"Fie, John! That is most ungrateful, after my standing here like a statue, with the basket on my head, ready for you to lay the figs in."

"That is all very fine!" John laughed; "but before the basket is half full, away you go; and I have to get down the ladder, and bring up the basket and fix it firmly, and that without shaking the figs; whereas, had you left it alone, altogether, I could have brought up the empty basket and fixed it close by my hand, without any trouble at all."

"You are an ungrateful boy, and you know how bad it is to be ungrateful! And after my making myself so hot, too!" Miriam said. "My face is as red as fire, and that is all the thanks I get. Very well, then, I shall go into the house, and leave you to your own bad reflections."

"You need not do that, Mary. You can sit down in the shade there, and watch us at work; and eat figs, and get yourself cool, all at the same time. The sun will be down in another half hour, and then I shall be free to amuse you."

"Amuse me, indeed!" the girl said indignantly, as she sat down on the bank to which John had pointed. "You mean that I shall amuse you; that is what it generally comes to. If it wasn't for me I am sure, very often, there would not be a word said when we are out together."

"Perhaps that is true," John agreed; "but you see, there is so much to think about."

"And so you choose the time when you are with me to think! Thank you, John! You had better think, at present," and, rising from the seat she had just taken, she walked back to the house again, regardless of John's explanations and shouts.

Old Isaac chuckled, on his tree close by.

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