n, in the empty pantry, before the cookie-jar. She
lifted the cracked plate again. . . . But, oh! how differently she did
feel now! . . . and she had a shock of pure, almost solemn, happiness at
the sight of the cookies. She had not only been good and done as Mother
would want her to, but she was going to have _four_ of those cookies.
Three _or_ four, Aunt Hetty had said! As if anybody would take three if
he was let to have four! Which ones had the most raisins? She knew of
course it wasn't _so very_ nice to pick and choose that way, but she
knew Mother would let her, only just laugh a little and say it was a
pity to be eight years old if you couldn't be a little greedy!

Oh, how happy she was! How light she felt! How she floated back up the
stairs! What a perfectly sweet old thing Aunt Hetty was! And what a nice
old house she had, though not so nice as home, of course. What pretty
mahogany balusters, and nice white stairs! Too bad she had brought in
that mud. But they were house-cleaning anyhow. A little bit more to
clean up, that was all. And what _luck_ that they were in the east-room
garret, the one that had all the old things in it, the hoop-skirts and
the shells and the old scoop-bonnets, and the four-poster bed and those
fascinating old cretonne bags full of treasures.

She sat down near the door on the darling little old hair-covered trunk
that had been Great-grandfather's, and watched the two old women at
work. The first cookie had disappeared now, and the second was well on
the way. She felt a great appeasement in her insides. She leaned back
against the old dresses hung on the wall and drew a long breath.

"Well," said Aunt Hetty, "you've got neighbors up your way, so they tell
me. Funny thing, a city man coming up here to live. He'll never stick it
out. The summer maybe. But that's all. You just see, come autumn, if he
don't light out for New York again."

Elly made no comment on this. She often heard her elders say that she
was not a talkative child, and that it was hard to get anything out of
her. That was because mostly they wanted to know about things she
hadn't once thought of noticing, and weren't a bit interested when she
tried to talk about what she _had_ noticed. Just imagine trying to tell
Aunt Hetty about that poor old gray snow-bank out in her woods, all
lonely and scrumpled up! She went on eating her cookie.

"How does he like it, anyhow?" asked Aunt Hetty, bending the upper part
of her out