ble, and a little smile flickering over her face.

"I s'pose I was a poor miserable creatur' to git out of it that way,"
said she. "If I'd felt as I do now, I needn't ha' done it. I could ha'
spoke up. But then it seemed as if there wa'n't no other way. I jest
wanted my Thanksgivin' in my own home, an' so I throwed you off the
track the best way I could. I dunno's I lied. I dunno whether I did or
not; but I guess, anyway, I shall be forgiven for it."

Ezra spoke first: "Well, if you didn't want to come"--

"Want to come!" broke in John. "Of course she don't want to come! She
wants to stay in her own home, an' call her soul her own--don't you,
Lucy?"

Lucy Ann glanced at him with her quick, grateful smile.

"I'm goin' to, now," she said gently, and they knew she meant it.

But, looking about among them, Lucy Ann was conscious of a little hurt
unhealed; she had thrown their kindness back.

"I guess I can't tell exactly how it is," she began hesitatingly; "but
you see my home's my own, jest as yours is. You couldn't any of you go
round cousinin', without feelin' you was tore up by the roots. You've
all been real good to me, wantin' me to come, an' I s'pose I should make
an awful towse if I never was asked; but now I've got all my visitin'
done up, cousins an' all, an' I'm goin' to be to home a spell. An' I do
admire to have company," added Lucy Ann, a bright smile breaking over
her face. "Mother did, you know, an' I guess I take arter her. Now you
lay off your things, an' I'll put the kettle on. I've got more pies 'n
you could shake a stick at, an' there's a whole loaf o' fruit-cake, a
year old."

Mary, taking off her shawl, wiped her eyes surreptitiously on a corner
of it, and Abby whispered to her husband, "Dear creatur'!" John and Ezra
turned, by one consent, to put the horses in the barn; and the children,
conscious that some mysterious affair had been settled, threw themselves
into the occasion with an irresponsible delight. The room became at once
vocal with talk and laughter, and Lucy Ann felt, with a swelling heart,
what a happy universe it is where so many bridges lie between this
world and that unknown state we call the next. But no moment of that
evening was half so sweet to her as the one when little John, the
youngest child of all, crept up to her and pulled at her poplin skirt,
until she bent down to hear.

"Grandma," said he, "when 'd you get well?"

THE EXPERIENCE OF HANNAH PRIME

Tiver