aunt Ann easily, returning to her
knitting. "I was only spec'latin'. The land, 'Melia, what you doin' of?
Repairin' an old coat?"

Amelia bent lower over her sewing. "'T was his," she answered in a voice
almost inaudible. "I put a patch on it last night by lamplight, and when
daytime come, I found it was purple. So I'm takin' it off, and puttin'
on a black one to match the stuff."

"Goin' to give it away?"

"No, I ain't," returned Amelia, again with that sharp, remonstrant note
in her voice. "What makes you think I'd do such a thing as that?"

"Law, I didn't mean no harm. You said you was repairin' on 't,--that's
all."

Amelia was ashamed of her momentary outbreak. She looked up and smiled
sunnily.

"Well, I suppose it _is_ foolish," she owned,--"too foolish to tell. But
I've been settin' all his clothes in order to lay 'em aside at last. I
kind o' like to do it."

Aunt Ann wagged her head, and ran a knitting-needle up under her cap on
a voyage of discovery.

"You think so now," she said wisely, "but you'll see some time it's
better by fur to give 'em away while ye can. The time never'll come when
it's any easier. My soul, 'Melia, how I should like to git up into your
chambers! It's six year now sence I've seen 'em."

Amelia laid down her work and considered the possibility.

"I don't know how in the world I could h'ist you up there," she
remarked, from an evident background of hospitable good-will.

"H'ist me up? I guess you couldn't! You'd need a tackle an' falls. Amos
has had to come to draggin' me round by degrees, an' I don't go off the
lower floor. Be them chambers jest the same, 'Melia?"

"Oh, yes, they're just the same. Everything is. You know he didn't like
changes."

"Blue spread on the west room bed?"

"Yes."

"Spinnin'-wheels out in the shed chamber, where his gran'mother Hooper
kep' 'em?"

"Yes."

"Say, 'Melia, do you s'pose that little still's up attic he used to have
such a royal good time with, makin' essences?"

Amelia's eyes filled suddenly with hot, unmanageable tears.

"Yes," she said; "we used it only two summers ago. I come across it
yesterday. Seemed as if I could smell the peppermint I brought in for
him to pick over. He was too sick to go out much then."

Aunt Ann had laid down her work again, and was gazing into vistas of
rich enjoyment.

"I'll be whipped if I shouldn't like to see that little still!"

"I'll go up and bring it down after dinner," said Amelia sober