his morning. His straight fair hair was brushed very smooth, his
white straw hat with its blue ribbon was set on exactly, there was not
a speck on his best blue suit.

"Willy looks as if he had just come out of the band-box," Grandma had
said. But she did not have time to admire him long; she was not nearly
ready herself. Grandma was always in a hurry at the last moment. Now
she had to pack her big valise, brush Grandpa's hair, put on his
"dicky" and cravat, and adjust her own bonnet and shawl.

Willy was privately afraid she would not be ready when the village
coach came, and so they would miss the train, but he said nothing.
He stood patiently in the door and looked down the street whence the
coach would come, and listened to the bustle in Grandma's room. There
was not an impatient line in his face although he had really a good
deal at stake. He was going to Exeter with his Grandpa and Grandma, to
visit his aunt Annie, and his new uncle Frank. Grandpa and Grandma had
come from Maine to visit their daughter Ellen who was Willy's mother,
and now they were going to see Annie. When Willy found out that he was
going too, he was delighted. He had always been very fond of his aunt
Annie, and had not seen her for a long time. He had never seen his new
uncle Frank who had been married to Annie six months before, and he
looked forward to that. Uncles and aunts seemed a very desirable
acquisition to this little Willy, who had always been a great pet
among his relatives.

"He won't make you a bit of trouble, if you don't mind taking him. He
never teases nor frets, and he won't be homesick," his mother had told
his grandmother.

"I know all about that," Grandma Stockton had replied. "I'd just as
soon take him as a doll-baby."

[Illustration: WATCHING FOR THE COACH.]

Willy Norton really was a very sweet boy. He proved it this morning
by standing there so patiently and never singing out, "Ain't you most
ready, Grandma?" although it did seem to him she never would be.

His mother was helping her pack too; he could hear them talking. "I
guess I sha'n't put in father's best coat," Grandma Stockton remarked,
among other things. "He won't be in Exeter over Sunday, and won't want
it to go to meetin', and it musses it up so to put it in a valise."

"Well, I don't know as I would as long as you're coming back here,"
said his mother.

After a while she remarked further, "If father should want that coat,
you can send for it, and I