d to buy the sapphire set (pin and ear-rings) she would
be glad to sell them. She would have to tell me, though, they had been
her great-grandmother's, and not her great-great's, as the pearls were,
and that she would take forty-five dollars for them, and if that was
too much she would take forty.

I almost lost my breath at her good sense, not expecting it, but I told
her it would be cheating if I paid less than seventy-five for them (I
had calculated that it would take about that to get the lavender satin
with things to match), and if she would get them for me I would take
them right away, and I was awfully obliged to her, as it would be such
a relief to get Aunt Celeste off my mind. I admitted I didn't always
pay as much as seventy-five for her present (I usually give her a
five-dollar one which Mother pays for), but Father wanted me to bring
her something quaint from Twickenham if I could find it, and he would
be delighted to know of the sapphires.

I fiddled along about other things for a moment or two and then I asked
Miss Susanna if she would think me a very piggy person to want to buy
one of those precious old silver pitchers of hers, as Mother would love
so to have one of that pattern (Mother had never mentioned it, but I
knew she would long for one of that pattern if she could see it), and I
waited with terrible anxiousness in my heart and a hot face for her
answer. Miss Susanna's got a lovely pinky color, and for a moment she
didn't say anything, and then Miss Araminta spoke for her and showed
more sensibleness than I thought was in her.

"Why don't you, Susanna?" she said, and nodded at her. They are first
cousins and very good friends. "Why don't you let the child have one
of those old pitchers? You have too much silver, anyhow, and with
servants of the present day any sort of silver is too great a burden to
be borne, much less ancestral sort. Young people want to buy their own
things, and reverence for the past is a thing of the past; and besides,
you have no one to leave yours to except some one who won't appreciate
it. Why don't you let her have it?"

"I would be glad for her to have it. Glad to help her out with her
Christmas difficulties, but"--Miss Susanna bit her lip and the pink in
her face became rose--"I have never done anything of this sort, and it
does not seem just right. I would be pleased for her mother to have
one of the pitchers. In a sense they are connected with her family a