now. It was very heavy, and pressed into lines, so that it made Patty think of yellow dimity. I wonder if there is a little girl anywhere now, who knows what dimity is? Patty knew, for dear grandmamma's bedroom at Spring Vale was curtained with it, and grandmamma herself used to wear the old-fashioned short gown of dimity over a fine cambric skirt, in the hot summer mornings. Patty once asked what dimity meant, and papa showed her that the cloth curled up, in little stripes, and looked just alike on both sides. This was because it was woven in an odd way. It was named from two Greek words, and its name meant "woven with two threads."

Patty thought of this as she looked at the paper. The Professor's wife was in the room. She sat on the floor by the side of her dear little baby. She had bright colored wool on her needles, and baby liked it. Now and then his little hand would clutch the thread, and before mamma knew it, it would snap. Patty called this lady aunt Anna. She looked up from her paper a moment, and saw the pretty picture. Then she held out her hand.

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Aunt Anna," said she, "what is the matter with this paper? See how thick and strong it is! Although it is so yellow, I cannot tear the least bit of it; and see all these coarse lines. Although it is so thick, I can see right through these lines. What are they?"

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They are the marks of the wire frame in which the paper was made," said the Professor's wife; and she shook the sheet out, and held it up to the light. "Come here, Patty," she said, in a "I don't believe mamma knows what she has got. This is a sheet of paper that was made for Washington himself; it is more than eighty years old. What do you see beside the lines?"

moment.

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"I see a woman sitting on something that looks like a plough turned upside down," said Patty; she has got a branch of a tree in one hand and a long stick in the other; there is a circle round her, and some letters, and a queer bird sits on the top of the circle. It looks like baby's wooden duck.”

"It was meant for a raven," said aunt Anna; "but spell out the letters."

Patty picked them out, and found that they spelt the name of George Washington.

Colonel Washington copied the notes on this old paper," said the Professor's wife, "because he thought it would please mamma to have some of it."

"What makes it so tough?" said Patty.

"It was made of linen," said her friend, "and the fibre of flax is longer and stronger than that of cotton. Our paper is cotton."

"But, aunty," said made in a frame, too?

Patty, "isn't our paper

Why don't the marks of

the wires show like these?"

"When this was made," said aunt Anna, " all paper was made by hand, and was very costly. A man took a frame just the size of this sheet. The wires of which the frame was made were much coarser than those we use now; and some of them were twisted into a mark, like that you just spelt out; and every sheet of paper was made by dipping the frame or mould into the wet pulp, and then hanging it to dry. Now it is done much faster by machinery, but the paper isn't so good."

"Who is the woman?" said Patty.

"I think she was meant for Liberty," said aunt Anna, laughing, "and it must have been when

Washington was at the head of his army, that he seated her on a plough!"

"Now let us read the letters," said Patty; and she slowly spelt out the words that were on the paper:

"Pa brought me two pretty books full of pictures he got them in Alexandria they have pictures of dogs and cats and tigers and elefants and ever so many pretty things cousin bids me send you one of them it has a picture of an elefant and a little indian boy on his back like uncle jo's sam. Pa says if I learn my tasks good he will let Uncle Jo bring me to see you will you ask your ma to let you come to see me.

"RICHARD HENRY LEE'

"Richard Henry Lee didn't mind his stops nor his capitals," said Patty, "and I can't read his letter right. I remember I used to think it very hard to have to write my letters to grandmamma over and over till I got them right. But she never would have known what they meant, aunt Anna, if they'd looked like this."

"Let us see what George Washington wrote,"

said the Professor's wife, throwing her ball of

bright wool at her baby.

Patty read on,—

"DEAR DICKEY I thank you very much for the pretty picture book you gave me.

Sam

asked me to show him the pictures and I showed
him all the pictures in it, and I read to him how
the tame Elephant took care of the master's little
boy, and put him on his back and would not let
any body touch his master's little son.
I can
read three or four pages sometimes without
missing a word. Ma says I may go to see you
and stay all day with you next week if it be not
rainy. She says I may ride my pony Hero if
Uncle Ben will go with me, & lead Hero. I
have a little piece of poetry about the picture
book you gave me, but I mustn't tell you who
wrote the poetry.

"G. W.'s compliments to R. H. L.,
And likes his book full well,

Henceforth will count him his friend,

And hopes many happy days he may spend.

"Your good friend,

ee e

GEORGE WASHINGTON.