A Little Maid of Province Town

"Mistress Stoddard, will you please to tell me what a 'spy' is?"

"A spy? and why do you wish to know, Anne?" responded her friend; "who has been talking to you of spies?"

"Is it an ill-seeming word?" questioned the child anxiously. "The Cary children did call it after me yesterday when I went to the spring."

"Did they that!" exclaimed Mrs. Stoddard angrily, "and what reply did you make, Anne?"

The little girl shook her head. "I said nothing. I knew not what they might mean. Does it mean an orphan child, Mistress Stoddard?" and the little girl lifted her dark eyes appealingly.

"I will tell you its meaning, Anne, and then you will see that it has naught to do with little girls. A 'spy' is like this: Suppose some one should wish to know if I kept my house in order, and what I gave the captain for