elf, Aunt Debby. I was thinking of you. Do
you think that I can ever enjoy being away and having a good time while
you are here alone?"

"I was used to being alone before you--"

"But you are not used to it now. I'll think of you sitting here alone in
the evening. Every time you leave the house you'll be alone and you'll
come into a lonely house when you come back. I will not go and leave
you here, Aunt Debby, and you cannot make me."

"Hester Alden--." Debby Alden meant to be firm. It was scandalous to
have a child so express herself to her elder, and that elder as a mother
to her. Debby Alden would not be weak. She would be firm, and not so
much as allow Hester to express an opinion.

"Hester Alden," she began, but could say no more because of a queer
little catch in her voice. She turned back to her dish-pan and fell with
great vigor to her dishwashing. After a few moments, she felt that she
could control herself, and turning to Hester, said, "Now, Hester Alden,
we'll have done with this nonsense right here. I've been alone and stood
it fairly well and I can stand it again. What does it matter if I am
alone? I'm no longer a young girl who demands company. I'm just a plain
old--"

"Why, Aunt Debby--you are not. Doesn't everyone say you're beautiful,
and you're not old--and you're never going to get old." Hester turned
and brought her foot down with some vigor, as though she would frighten
old age and gray hair and loneliness from the house.

"Why, Aunt Debby, everyone says you're beautiful. The girls at
school--."

Debby's cheeks flushed. There was something very sweet in the assertion,
although she did not believe it even for a moment. But in all her forty
years, no one had ever used that word in speaking of Debby. Although she
felt that even now love, and not facts, was making use of it, she was
touched. She was a woman after all, and it was sweet to find herself
beautiful in someone's eyes.

But discipline must be maintained. She turned toward Hester. The girl
threw her arms about Debby Alden's neck and sobbed, and Debby held up
her kitchen apron before her eyes and wept silently.

"There, Hester, there!" she said at last. "We're both very silly, very
silly. You must go to school and that's an end to it."

"No, Aunt Debby. I'll never go and leave you here alone. If I go, you
must go with me."

"Go with you! That is the veriest nonsense, Hester. Debby Alden in a
seminary. I'm not in my second childhood