Then she made her few arrangements in the house-keeping line, called
in her grand vizier and prime minister from the kitchen, and held with
her a counsel of ways and means; put on her india-rubbers and Polish
boots, and walked up through the deep snow-drifts to the Springdale
post-office, where she dropped the fateful letter with a good heart on
the whole; and then she went on to John's, the old home, to offer any
parting services to Lillie that might be wanted.

It is rather amusing, in any family circle, to see how some one
member, by dint of persistent exactions, comes to receive always, in
all the exigencies of life, an amount of attention and devotion which
is never rendered back. Lillie never thought of such a thing as
offering any services of any sort to Grace. Grace might have packed
her trunks to go to the moon, or the Pacific Ocean, quite alone for
matter of any help Lillie would ever have thought of. If Grace had
headache or tooth-ache or a bad cold, Lillie was always "so sorry;"
but it never occurred to her to go and sit with her, to read to her,
or offer any of a hundred little sisterly offices. When she was in
similar case, John always summoned Grace to sit with Lillie during
the hours that his business necessarily took him from her. It really
seemed to be John's impression that a tooth-ache or headache of
Lillie's was something entirely different from the same thing with
Grace, or any other person in the world; and Lillie fully shared the
impression.

Grace found the little empress quite bewildered in her multiplicity of
preparations, and neglected details, all of which had been deferred to
the last day; and Rosa and Anna and Bridget, in fact the whole staff,
were all busy in getting her off.

"So good of you to come, Gracie!" and, "If you would do this;" and,
"Won't you see to that?" and, "If you could just do the other!" and
Grace both could and would, and did what no other pair of hands could
in the same time. John apologized for the lack of any dinner. "The
fact is, Gracie, Bridget had to be getting up a lot of her things that
were forgotten till the last moment; and I told her not to mind,
we could do on a cold lunch." Bridget herself had become so wholly
accustomed to the ways of her little mistress, that it now seemed the
most natural thing in the world that the whole house should be upset
for her.

But, at last, every thing was ready and packed; the trunks and boxes
shut and locked, and the k