BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1893
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by
James R. Osgood and Company,
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
WRITINGS. New Edition, from new plates. The set, 17 vols. 16mo, $21.25.
FAITH GARTNEY'S GIRLHOOD. 16mo, $1.25.
HITHERTO: A Story of Yesterdays. 16mo, $1.25.
PATIENCE STRONG'S OUTINGS. 16mo, $1.25.
THE GAYWORTHYS. 16mo, $1.25.
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 16mo, $1.25.
WE GIRLS: A Home Story. Illustrated. 16mo, $1.25.
REAL FOLKS. 16mo, $1.25.
THE OTHER GIRLS. 16mo, $1.25.
SIGHTS AND INSIGHTS. 2 vols. 16mo, $2.50.
ODD, OR EVEN? 16mo, $1.25.
BONNYBOROUGH. 16mo, $1.25.
BOYS AT CHEQUASSET. Illustrated. 16mo, $1.25.
MOTHER GOOSE FOR GROWN FOLKS. Enlarged Edition. Illustrated by Hoppin. 16mo, $1.25.
HOMESPUN YARNS. Short Stories. 16mo, $1.25.
ASCUTNEY STREET. A Neighborhood Story. 16mo, $1.25.
A GOLDEN GOSSIP. Neighborhood Story Number Two. 16mo, $1.25.
DAFFODILS. Poems. Illustrated. 16mo, $1.25.
PANSIES. Poems. New Edition. 16mo, $1.25.
HOLY-TIDES. Seven Songs for the Church's Seasons. 16mo, illuminated paper, 75 cents.
BIRD-TALK. New Poems. Illustrated. Crown 8vo, $1.00.
JUST HOW: A Key to the Cook-Books. 16mo, $1.00.
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
Boston and New York.
"Wait until you are helped, my dear! Don't touch the pie until it iscut!"
The old Mother, Life, keeps saying that to us all.
As individuals, it is well for us to remember it; that we may nothave things until we are helped; at any rate, until the full andproper time comes, for courageously and with right assurance helpingourselves.
Yet it is good for people, as people, to get a morsel—aflavor—in advance. It is well that they should be impatient for theKing's supper, to which we shall all sit down, if we will, one day.
So I have not waited for everything to happen and become a usage,that I have told you of in this little story. I confess that thereare good things in it which have not yet, literally, come to pass. Ihave picked something out of the pie beforehand.
I meant, therefore, to have laid all dates aside; especially as Ifound myself a little cramped by them, in re-introducing among these"Other Girls" the girls whom we have before, and rather lately,known. Lest, possibly, in anything which they have here grown to, orexperienced, or accomplished, the sharply exact reader should seemto detect the requirement of a longer interval than the almanacscould actually give, I meant to have asked that it should beremembered, that we story-tellers write chiefly in the PotentialMood, and that tenses do not very essentially signify. It will allhave had opportunity to be true in eighteen-seventy-five, if it havenot had in eighteen-seventy-three. Well enough, indeed, if theprophecies be justif