o."

All at once something strange came over Laura Ledwith. She crumpled
the letter tight in her hands with a clutch of quick excitement, and
began to choke with a little sob, and to laugh at the same time.

"Don't give way!" cried Mrs. Megilp, coming to her and giving her a
little shake and a slap. "If you do once you will again, and you're
_not_ hystericky!"

"He's sent for Frank, too. Frank and I will be together again in
dear old Boston! But--we can't be children and sit on the shed any
more; and--it _isn't_ dear old Boston, either!"

And then Laura gave right up, and had a good cry for five minutes.
After that she felt better, and asked Mrs. Megilp how she thought a
house in Spiller Street would do.

But she couldn't rip any more of those breadths that morning.

Agatha and Florence came in from some calls at the Goldthwaites and
the Haddens, and the news was told, and they had their bonnets to
take off, and the dinner-bell rang, and the smell of the spicy
pigeon-stew came up the stairs, all together. And they went down,
talking fast; and one said "house," and another "carpets," and
another "music and German;" and Desire, trailing a breadth of green
silk in her hand that she had never let go since the letter was
read, cried out, "oratorios!" And nobody quite knew what they were
going down stairs for, or had presence of mind to realize the
pigeons, or help each other or themselves properly, when they got
there! Except Mrs. Megilp, who was polite and hospitable to them
all, and picked two birds in the most composed and elegant manner.

When the dessert was put upon the table, and Christina, confusedly
enlightened as to the family excitement, and excessively curious,
had gone away into the kitchen, Mrs. Ledwith said to Mrs. Megilp,--

"I'm not sure I should fancy Spiller Street, after all; it's a sort
of a corner. Westmoreland Street or Helvellyn Park might be nice. I
know people down that way,--Mrs. Inchdeepe."

"Mrs. Inchdeepe isn't exactly 'people,'" said Mrs. Megilp, in a
quiet way that implied more than grammar. "Don't get into 'And' in
Boston, Laura!--With such an addition to your income, and what your
uncle gives you toward a house, I don't see why you might not think
of Republic Avenue."

"We shall have plenty of thinking to do about everything," said
Laura.

"Mamma," said Agatha, insinuatingly, "I'm thinking, already; about
that rose-pink paper for my room. I'm glad now I didn't have it
here."