oo."

The aunts looked at each other. "I s'pose it would be dreadful foolish,"
said Lucretia.

"She'd be 'most too tickled to live," remarked Maria.

"Well, we can't buy 'em to-night anyway," said Lucretia. "I must light
the candles an' lock up."

The next day was Christmas. It was about three o'clock in the afternoon
when old Mrs. Emmons went up the road to the Raymond house. She had a
little parcel. When she came into the sitting-room there was young
Lucretia in a corner, so that the room should not get in a mess, with
her wealth around her. She looked forth, a radiant little mother of
dolls, from the midst of her pretty miniature house-keeping.

"My sakes!" cried old Mrs. Emmons, "isn't that complete? She's got a big
wax doll, an' a bedstead, an' a baby-carriage, an' a table an' bureau. I
declare! Well, I don't know what I should have thought when I was a
little gal. An' I've brought some pieces for you to make some more
dresses for the rag baby, if you want to."

Young Lucretia's eyes shone.

"You were real kind to think of it," said Aunt Lucretia; "an' she'll
take real comfort making the dresses. I'm real glad you came in, Mis'
Emmons. I've been going down to see you for a long time. I want to see
Ann, too; I thought I'd see if she hadn't got a pattern of a dress that
buttons up in the back for Lucretia."

Young Lucretia's eyes shone more than ever, and she smiled out of her
corner like a little star.

HOW FIDELIA WENT TO THE STORE

"I don't know what we're goin' to do," said Aunt Maria Crooker. She sat
in a large arm-chair, and held in her lap a bowl of sugar and butter
that she was creaming. Aunt Maria filled up the chair from arm to arm,
for she was very portly; she had a large, rosy, handsome face, and she
creamed with such energy that she panted for breath.

"Well, I don't know, either," rejoined her sister, Mrs. Lennox. "I can't
go to the store with my lame foot, that's certain."

"Well, I know _I_ can't," said Aunt Maria, with additional emphasis. "I
haven't walked two mile for ten year, an' I don't believe I could get to
that store and back to save my life."

"I don't believe you could, either. I don't know what is goin' to be
done. We can't make the cake without raisins, anyhow. It's the queerest
thing how father happened to forget them. Now here he is gone over to
East Dighton after the new cow, and Cynthy gone to Keene to buy her
bonnet, an' me with a scalt foot, an' you not able