hinking
of it for Aunt Allen's gift," continued Laura.

"And so I was. It costs just fifty dollars. But I think you are right
about it. And, besides, do you like bronze, Laura?"

"I like marble a great, great deal best. There is a bronze statue of
Fortune, and a Venus, at Harris & Stanwood's, that are called 'so
beautiful!'--and I wouldn't have them in my house."

Here was an extinguisher. Laura didn't like bronze. And Laura was to be
in my house, whether bronzes--were or not.

* * * * *

The sun shone brightly through the bitter-sweet that ran half over the
window, and lighted on the corner of an old mahogany chest.

"That reminds me!" said I, suddenly. "Yesterday, I was looking at
crockery, and there was the most delightful cabinet!--real Japan work,
such as we read of; full of little drawers, and with carved silver
handles, and a secret drawer that shoots out when you touch a spring at
the back. Wouldn't that be a beautiful thing to stand in the parlor,
Laura?"

"For what, Del? Could you keep silver in it? How large is it?"

"Why, no,--it wouldn't be large enough to hold silver. And, besides, I
don't know that I want it for any such purpose. It would hold jewelry."

"If you had any, Del."

"There's the secret drawer,--that would be capital for anything I wanted
to keep perfectly secret."

"Such as what'?"

"Oh, I don't know what, now; but I might possibly have."

"I can't think of anything you would want to shut up in that drawer,"
said Laura, laughing at my mysterious face, which she said looked about
as secret as a hen-coop with the chickens all flying out between the
slats. "In the first place, you haven't any secrets, and are not likely
to have; and next, you will show us (Mr. Sampson and me) the drawer and
spring the first thing you do. And I shall look there every week, to see
if there's anything hid there!"

"Oh, bah!" said I to myself; "Sumner told me that cabinet was just fifty
dollars."

Something--I know not what, and probably never shall know--made me rise
from my rocking-chair, and walk to the chamber-window. At that moment, a
man with a green bag in his hand walked swiftly by, touched his hat as
he passed, and smiled as he turned the corner out of sight. A little
spasm, half painful in its pleasure, contracted my chest, and then
set out at a thrilling pace to the end of my fingers. Then a sense of
triumphant fulness, in my heart, on my lip, in my eyes. N