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 the training ground, was headquarters for all of the townsmen, and who, himself, a fine, jovial, well-liked man, was a keen patriot.

"What care I for the candle-holders!" returned Mistress Munn, now, gently. "Think ye, Sally, they be half so dear to me as the cause for which they are to be melted? I only wish I had fifty times as many articles to gi'!"

Sally sighed. She wished she had even a pair of candle-holders to donate! Her thin arms tightened around little Nathaniel, whom she was carrying out to the field for Mistress Williams.

"At least I can do that much for my country," she thought. "Save one o' its workers for her real work this day!"

Mistress Munn noticed the girl's sigh and looked at the heavy baby she was carrying. "Let me carry him, Sally, and do ye carry the candle-holders!" she offered kindly, mistaking the meaning of that sigh. "Indeed, he is a heavy burden for such a slender maid to carry!"

"Nay!" Breathlessly, Sally shook her head. It was truly hard work walking slowly through the hot fields, dodging the protruding spears of the corn stalks, stumbling over the ripening pumpkins that lay between the corn rows; but not for worlds would she surrender her fat, precious burden. Then, too: "Ye see—it—it makes me feel as though I be-