ays I,
'Patty who, child?' Says I, 'If it was to hear Miss Penelope sing, I'd
carry these old bones o' mine clear from here to New York. But there
ain't anybody else I want to hear sing bad enough to go up to
Louisville or anywhere else. And some o' these days,' says I, _'I'm
goin' to hear Miss Penelope sing._'"

Aunt Jane laughed blithely, and it was impossible not to laugh with
her.

"Honey," she said, in the next breath, lowering her voice and laying
her finger on the rosebud piece, "honey, there's one thing I can't git
over. Here's a piece o' Miss Penelope's dress, but _where's Miss
Penelope_? Ain't it strange that a piece o' caliker'll outlast you and
me? Don't it look like folks ought 'o hold on to their bodies as long
as other folks holds on to a piece o' the dresses they used to wear?"

Questions as old as the human heart and its human grief! Here is the
glove, but where is the hand it held but yesterday? Here the jewel
that she wore, but where is she?

"Where is the Pompadour now?
_This_ was the Pompadour's fan!"

Strange that such things as gloves, jewels, fans, and dresses can
outlast a woman's form.

"Behold! I show you a mystery"--the mystery of mortality. And an eery
feeling came over me as I entered into the old woman's mood and
thought of the strong, vital bodies that had clothed themselves in
those fabrics of purple and pink and white, and that now were dust and
ashes lying in sad, neglected graves on farm and lonely roadside.
There lay the quilt on our knees, and the gay scraps of calico seemed
to mock us with their vivid colors. Aunt Jane's cheerful voice called
me back from the tombs.

"Here's a piece o' one o' my dresses," she said; "brown ground with a
red ring in it. Abram picked it out. And here's another one, that
light yeller ground with the vine runnin' through it. I never had so
many caliker dresses that I didn't want one more, for in my day folks
used to think a caliker dress was good enough to wear anywhere. Abram
knew my failin', and two or three times a year he'd bring me a dress
when he come from town. And the dresses he'd pick out always suited me
better'n the ones I picked."

"I ricollect I finished this quilt the summer before Mary Frances was
born, and Sally Ann and Milly Amos and Maria Petty come over and give
me a lift on the quiltin'. Here's Milly's work, here's Sally Ann's,
and here's Maria's."

I looked, but my inexperienced eye could see no difference in th