ght
down to her mother, and proffered her request timidly, and yet with a
confidence as of one who has a larger voice of authority at her back.

"Please, mother, may I go over to Aunt Camilla's this afternoon?"
asked little Lucina.

And her mother, not knowing what principle of childish faith was
involved, hesitated, knitting her small, dark face, which had no look
like Lucina's, perplexedly.

"I don't know, child," said she.

"Please, mother!"

"I am afraid you'll trouble your aunt, Lucina."

"No, I won't, mother! I'll take my doll, and I'll play with her real
quiet."

"I am afraid your aunt Camilla will have something else to do."

"She can do it, mother. I won't trouble her--I won't speak to
her--honest! Please, mother."

"You ought to sit down at home this afternoon and do some work,
Lucina."

"I'll take over my garter-knitting, mother, and I'll knit ten times
across."

It happened at length, whether through effectual prayer, or such
skilful fencing against weak maternal odds, that the little Lucina,
all fresh frilled and curled, with her silk knitting-bag dangling at
her side, and her doll nestled to her small mother-shoulder, stepping
with dainty primness in her jostling starched pantalets, lifting each
foot carefully lest she hit her nice morocco toes against the stones,
went up the road to her aunt Camilla's.

Miss Camilla Merritt lived in the house which had belonged to her
grandfather, called the "old Merritt house" to distinguish it from
the one which her father had built, in which her brother Eben lived.
Both, indeed, were old, but hers was venerable, and claimed that
respect which extreme age, even in inanimate things, deserves. And in
a way, indeed, this old house might have been considered raised above
the mere properties of wood and brick and plaster by such an
accumulation of old memories and associations, which were inseparable
from its walls, to something nearly sentient and human, and to have
established in itself a link 'twixt matter and mind.

Never had any paint touched its outer walls, overlapped with
silver-gray shingles like scales of a fossil fish. The door and the
great pillared portico over it were painted white, as they had been
from the first, and that was all. A brick walk, sunken in mossy
hollows, led up to the front door, which was only a few feet from
the road, the front yard being merely a narrow strip with great
poplars set therein. Lucina had always had a suspicio