as absolute quiet through all the house. There was even no
sizzling from the kettles on the stove, for everything had been dished
up. The vegetables, all salted and peppered and buttered, were on the
table--but the turkey was not there. In the great vacant place where the
turkey should have been was a piece of white paper. Ann Mary spied it in
a moment. She caught it up and looked at it. It was a note from her
grandmother:

We have had word that Aunt Betsey has had a bad turn. Lizz wants us
to come. The dinner is all ready for you. If we ain't home
to-night, you can get Loretty to stay with you. Be a good girl.
GRANDMA.

Ann Mary read the note and stood reflecting, her mouth drooping at the
corners. Aunt Betsey was Mrs. Little's sister; Lizz was her daughter who
lived with her and took care of her. They lived in Derby, and Derby was
fourteen miles away. It seemed a long distance to Ann Mary, and she felt
sure that her grandparents could not come home that night. She looked
around the empty room and sighed. After a while she sat down and pulled
off the snowy socks; she thought she might as well eat her dinner,
although she did not feel so hungry as she had expected. Everything was
on the table but the turkey and plum-pudding. Ann Mary supposed these
were in the oven keeping warm; the door was ajar. But, when she looked,
they were not there. She went into the pantry; they were not there
either. It was very strange; there was the dripping-pan in which the
turkey had been baked, on the back of the stove, with some gravy in it;
and there was the empty pudding-dish on the hearth.

"What has grandma done with the turkey and the plum-pudding?" said Ann
Mary, aloud.

She looked again in the pantry; then she went down to the cellar--there
seemed to be so few places in the house in which it was reasonable to
search for a turkey and a plum-pudding!

Finally she gave it up, and sat down to dinner. There was plenty of
squash and potatoes and turnips and onions and beets and cranberry-sauce
and pies; but it was no Thanksgiving dinner without turkey and
plum-pudding. It was like a great flourish of accompaniment without any
song.

Ann Mary did as well as she could; she put some turkey-gravy on her
potato and filled up her plate with vegetables; but she did not enjoy
the dinner. She felt more and more lonely, too. She resolved that after
she had washed up the dinner dishes and changed her dress, she would go