LEASE, sir, can I take out ‘Sanford and Merton’ ?”

My. Peters, the librarian of the new Belfield library,
looked over the top of his spectacles in his absent-
minded way.

The fact was, the volumes were not yet ready for
circulation, it being necessary to hire some one to cover
them. The girl who had spoken seemed about thirteen

years old, and she blushed with timidity as she made her request. He noticed
her more attentively.

She wore a calico gown, faded, but carefully starched and ironed, long
pantalets, and a green gingham sunbonnet— which she had taken off and was
swinging nervously by the string. Her glossy black hair was combed straight
back from her forehead, and cut squarely off at the nape of her neck. It was
plain that she was not one of the village girls, with whom clipped or “ shingled”
hair, and longer gowns without pantalets, had been for some time in vogue;
she evidently belonged to one of the outlying “ districts,’ where change seldom
came and the same mode of dress prevailed indefinitely.

“Whose girl are you?” Mr. Peters asked, with interest.

‘Mr. Prior’s. Jam Hetty Prior, sir.”

“T thought likely. Well, now, I don’t like to refuse you the book, you’ve
come so far. Over two miles, isn’t it? Here. But promise you'll cover it;
they’re all to be covered before going out.”

“Thank you, sir.” Hetty’s dark eyes expressed more than her timid words.
She clasped the story-book close, and started away.

She had not been gone ten minutes when Mr. Peters exclaimed :

“Why didn’t I hire that girl to cover the books? She looked just like the
one to be glad of the work. But I’m always behind time, like the man who
remembered he’d got to go to mill when he'd let the horse out to pasture.”

At the old-fashioned farmhouse to which she came, Hetty had scarcely time
to speak of the librarian’s kindness, when her mother called to her: