arted to pray about it, and then I
remembered I was in an awful hurry and it would be better to get to
work, and, going over to the bureau, I opened its top drawer, and there
looking up at me was my bank-book lying on a pile of handkerchiefs.
Father had put a very respectable sum of money in the Twickenham bank
for me and told me to use it whenever I could do it in the right way,
and he would trust me to find the right way; but though I had tried to
get rid of some of it, there were few opportunities (so it wouldn't be
manifest, I mean), and now one popped right up in my face.

For fear it might pop out again I ran downstairs as quick as I could,
and, seeing Miss Susanna and Miss Araminta were by themselves, I began
to talk about the Pettigrew children and what they had told me they
wanted Santa Claus to bring them Christmas. And that reminded me
suddenly that Christmas would soon be here, and I told them that in
August I always began to think about what to get Mother and Aunt
Celeste, who were my chief Christmas worries, and I wondered if they
thought I could get something in Twickenham that I could take back with
me. I felt, as I talked, that I was on a tight rope forty feet in the
air and mighty little to balance myself with, but I managed to put in
words what I wanted to say, and like little angels they fell in and
never dreamed I had thought the thing out before I spoke.

I told them that Mother and Aunt Celeste had much more than they needed
in life, and it was hard to get anything new and different for them, as
there were so many to give them presents, and that I liked to get
something odd if I could. The things they were crazy about were old
silver and old jewelry, especially old settings, and it was hard to
find them in our town, and I wondered if they could help me get a piece
of silver like one of Miss Susanna's pitchers for Mother, and a set of
sapphires like Miss Araminta's for Aunt Celeste. Also I said I didn't
want to trouble them and I hoped they wouldn't mind my asking them.

Miss Araminta said no indeed, she didn't mind, and that she had got
into the state of mind Miss Virginia Hill was in, and she wasn't going
to keep on keeping a lot of things that were no use just because they
had belonged to long-dead grandmothers. And while she wouldn't go as
far as Miss Virginia, who would sell every ancestor she had for a
million dollars, she would part with some other things for much less,
and if I wante