ave you for company."

Mrs. Falconer's Rubicon was crossed. She could not draw back now if
she wanted to. But she was not at all sure that she did want to. By
the time she reached home she was sure she didn't want to. And yet--to
give Missy's room to Camilla! It seemed a great sacrifice to Mrs.
Falconer.

She went up to it the next morning with firmly set lips to air and
dust it. It was just the same as when Missy had left it long ago.
Nothing had ever been moved or changed, but everything had always been
kept beautifully neat and clean. Snow-white muslin curtains hung
before the small square window. In one corner was a little white bed.
Missy's pictures hung on the walls; Missy's books and work-basket were
lying on the square stand; there was a bit of half-finished fancy
work, yellow from age, lying in the basket. On a small bureau before
the gilt-framed mirror were several little girlish knick-knacks and
boxes whose contents had never been disturbed since Missy went away.
One of Missy's gay pink ribbons--Missy had been so fond of pink
ribbons--hung over the top of the mirror. On a chair lay Missy's hat,
bright with ribbons and roses, just as Missy had laid it there on the
night before she left her home.

Mrs. Falconer's lips quivered as she looked about the room, and tears
came to her eyes. Oh, how could she put these things away and bring a
stranger here--here, where no one save herself had entered for fifteen
years, here in this room, sacred to Missy's memory, waiting for her
return when she should be weary of wandering? It almost seemed to the
mother's vague fancy, distorted by long, silent brooding, that her
daughter's innocent girlhood had been kept here for her and would be
lost forever if the room were given to another.

"I suppose it's dreadful foolishness," said Mrs. Falconer, wiping her
eyes. "I know it is, but I can't help it. It just goes to my heart to
think of putting these things away. But I must do it. Camilla is
coming here today, and this room must be got ready for her. Oh, Missy,
my poor lost child, it's for your sake I'm doing this--because you may
be suffering somewhere as Camilla is now, and I'd wish the same
kindness to be shown to you."

She opened the window and put fresh linen on the bed. One by one
Missy's little belongings were removed and packed carefully away. On
the gay, foolish little hat with its faded wreath of roses the
mother's tears fell as she put it in a box. She remembered