e," I confided to Mrs. Ewe as I gave her an extra handful of wheat out
of the blouse-pocket which I kept filled for Mr. G. Bird from pure
partiality.

Uncle Cradd did not bring a letter from the post-office for me. The blow in
the apple orchard and the purple plumes on the lilac bushes looked less
brilliant in hue, but the tune on my heartstrings kept up a note of pure
bravado. I weeded the garden all afternoon, but stopped early, fed early,
and went up-stairs to my room before the last sunset glow had faded off the
dormer windows. Opening my old mahogany chest, I took out a bundle I had
made up the day after the advent of Mother Cow and the calf, spread it out
on the bed, and looked it over.

In it was an incredible amount of lingerie, made of crepe de chine and
lace, folded tightly and tied with a ribbon into a package not over a foot
square. A comb and a brush of old ivory, which had set in its back a small
mirror held in by a silver band, which father had purchased in Florence
for me under a museum guaranty as a genuine Cellini work of art, were
wrapped in a silk case, and a toothbrush and soap had occupied their
respective oil-silk cases along with a tube of tooth paste and one of cold
cream. Two pairs of soft, but strong, tan cotton stockings were tucked
underneath the ribbon confining the lingerie, and a small prayer-book with
both mine and my mother's name in it completed the--I hadn't exactly liked
to call it a trousseau. It was all tied up in one of Adam's Romney
handkerchiefs, which he had washed out one day in the spring branch and
left hanging on a hickory sapling to dry, and which I had appropriated
because I loved its riot of faded colors.

"It is just about the size of his," I had said to myself as I had tied up
its corners that day after my love adventure in the orchard under the
chaperonage of Mother Cow, and I had laughed as I imagined Pan's face when
he discovered that I had been so entirely unfemininely subservient to his
command about light traveling. Suddenly I swept the bundle together and
back in the chest, while a note of genuine fear swept into the song in my
heart.

"He'll write from New Orleans--he doesn't sail until to-morrow," I
whispered as I quieted the discord and went down to prayers.

"I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul:"

intoned Uncle Cradd, and somehow the tumult in