tle, too. "Of course I will,
auntie. I'll put 'em back now. But when you're gone, I'll do it; perhaps
not till Saturday, but I will then."

She folded the articles, and softly laid them away. They were no longer
gruesome, since even a few of them could recall the beloved and still
remembered dead. As she was gently closing the lid, she felt a hand on
her shoulder. Aunt Luceba was standing there, trembling a little, though
the tears had gone from her face.

"Isabel," said she, in a whisper, "you needn't burn the apron, when you
do the rest. Save it careful. I should like to put it away among my
things."

Isabel nodded. She remembered her grandmother, a placid, hopeful woman,
whose every deed breathed the fragrance of godly living.

"There!" said her aunt, turning away with the air of one who thrusts
back the too insistent past, lest it dominate her quite. "It's gittin'
along towards dark, an' I must put for home. I guess that hoss thinks
he's goin' to be froze to the ground. You wrop up my soap-stone while I
git on my shawl. Land! don't it smell hot? I wisht I hadn't been so spry
about puttin' on 't into the oven." She hurried on her things; and
Isabel, her hair blowing about her face, went out to uncover the horse
and speed the departure. The reins in her hands, aunt Luceba bent
forward once more to add, "Isabel, if there's one thing left for me to
say, to tole you over to live with us, I want to say it."

Isabel laughed. "I know it," she answered brightly. "And if there's
anything I can say to make you and aunt Mary Ellen come over here"--

Aunt Luceba shook her head ponderously, and clucked at the horse. "Fur's
I'm concerned, it's settled now. I'd come, an' be glad. But there's Mary
Ellen! Go 'long!" She went jangling away along the country road to the
music of old-fashioned bells.

Isabel ran into the house, and, with one look at the chest, set about
preparing her supper. She was enjoying her life of perfect freedom with
a kind of bravado, inasmuch as it seemed an innocent delight of which
nobody approved. If the two aunts would come to live with her, so much
the better; but since they refused, she scorned the descent to any
domestic expedient. Indeed, she would have been glad to sleep, as well
as to eat, in the lonely house; but to that her sister would never
consent, and though she had compromised by going to Sadie's for the
night, she always returned before breakfast. She put up a leaf of the
table standin