g, while she stayed at home and cooked the dinner. "It does seem
dreadful heathenish for nobody to go to meetin' Thanksgivin' Day," said
she; "an' we ain't even heard the proclamation read, neither. It rained
so hard last Sabbath that we couldn't go."

The season was unusually wintry and severe, and lately the family had
been prevented from church-going. It was two Sundays since any of the
family had gone. The village was three miles away, and the road was
rough. Mr. Little was too old to drive over it in very bad weather.

When Ann Mary went to carry the plate of Thanksgiving dinner to Sarah
Bean, she wore a pair of her grandfather's blue woollen socks drawn over
her shoes to keep out the snow. The snow was rather deep for easy
walking, but she did not mind that. She carried the dinner with great
care; there was a large plate well filled, and a tin dish was turned
over it to keep it warm. Sarah Bean was an old woman who lived alone.
Her house was about a quarter of a mile from the Littles'.

When Ann Mary reached the house, she found the old woman making a cup of
tea. There did not seem to be much of anything but tea and
bread-and-butter for her dinner. She was very deaf and infirm, all her
joints shook when she tried to use them, and her voice quavered when she
talked. She took the plate, and her hands trembled so that the tin dish
played on the plate like a clapper. "Why," said she, overjoyed, "this
looks just like Thanksgiving Day, tell your grandma!"

"Why, it _is_ Thanksgiving Day," declared Ann Mary, with some wonder.

"What?" asked Sarah Bean.

"_It is Thanksgiving Day, you know._" But it was of no use, the old
woman could not hear a word. Ann Mary's voice was too low.

Ann Mary could not walk very fast on account of the snow. She was absent
some three-quarters of an hour; her grandmother had told her that dinner
would be all on the table when she returned. She was enjoying the nice
things in anticipation all the way; when she came near the house, she
could smell roasted turkey, and there was also a sweet spicy odor in the
air.

She noticed with surprise that a sleigh had been in the yard. "I wonder
who's come," she said to herself. She thought of Lucy, and whether they
_could_ have driven over from the village. She ran in. "Why, who's
come?" she cried out.

Her voice sounded like a shout in her own ears; it seemed to awaken
echoes. She fairly startled herself, for there was no one in the room.
There w