"Well, I declare! Sometimes I think I'll never give anybody a thing again!"

Mr. Smith, at his table, was conscious of a sudden lively interest. So often, in his earlier acquaintance with Mrs. Jane, while he boarded there, had he heard her say to mission-workers, church-solicitors, and doorway beggars, alike, something similar to this; "No, I can give you nothing. I have nothing to give. I'd love to, if I could—really I would. It makes me quite unhappy to hear of all this need and suffering. I'd so love to do something! And if I were rich I would; but as it is, I can only give you my sympathy and my prayers."

Mr. Smith was thinking of this now. He had wondered several times, since the money came, as to Mrs. Jane's giving. Hence his interest now in what she was about to say.

"Why, Jane, what's the matter?" Miss Maggie was querying.

"Everything's the matter," snapped Jane. "And positively a more ungrateful set of people all around I never saw. To begin with, take the church. You know I've never been able to do anything. We couldn't afford it. And now I was so happy that I COULD do something, and I told them so; and they seemed real pleased at first. I gave two dollars apiece to the Ladies' Aid, the Home Missionary Society, and the Foreign Missionary Society—and, do you know? they hardly even thanked me! They acted for all the world as if they expected more—the grasping things! And, listen! On the way home, just as I passed the Gale girls' I heard Sue say: 'What's two dollars to her? She'll never miss it.' They meant me, of course. So you see it wasn't appreciated. Now, was it?"

"Perhaps not."

"What's the good of giving, if you aren't going to get any credit, or thanks, just because you're rich, I should like to know? And they aren't the only ones. Nothing has been appreciated," went on Mrs. Jane discontentedly." Look at Cousin Mary Davis—YOU know how poor they've always been, and how hard it's been for them to get along. Her Carrie- -Mellicent's age, you know—has had to go to work in Hooper's store. Well, I sent Mellicent's old white lace party dress to Mary. 'Twas some soiled, of course, and a little torn; but I thought she could clean it and make it over beautifully for Carrie. But, what do you think?—back it came the next day with a note from Mary saying very crisply that Carrie had no place to wear white lace dresses, and they had no time to make it over if she did. No place to wear it, indeed! Didn't I invite her to my housewarming? And didn't Hattie, too? But how are you going to help a person like that?"