r been any such room?"

"That is what they said."

"Wasn't there any blue chintz in the house with a peacock figure?"

"Not a scrap, and Aunt Hannah said there had never been any that she
could remember; and Maria just echoed her--she always does that. You
see, Aunt Hannah is an up-and-down New England woman. She looks just
like herself; I mean, just like her character. Her joints move up and
down or backward and forward in a plain square fashion. I don't believe
she ever leaned on anything in her life, or sat in an easy-chair. But
Maria is different; she is rounder and softer; she hasn't any ideas of
her own; she never had any. I don't believe she would think it right or
becoming to have one that differed from Aunt Hannah's, so what would be
the use of having any? She is an echo, that's all.

"When mamma and I got there, of course I was all excitement to see the
china-closet, and I had a sort of feeling that it would be the little
room after all. So I ran ahead and threw open the door, crying, 'Come
and see the little room.'

"And, Roger," said Mrs. Grant, laying her hand in his, "there really was
a little room there, exactly as mother had remembered it. There was the
lounge, the peacock chintz, the green door, the shell, the
morning-glory and rose paper, _everything exactly as she had described
it to me_."

"What in the world did the sisters say about it?"

"Wait a minute and I will tell you. My mother was in the front hall
still talking with Aunt Hannah. She didn't hear me at first, but I ran
out there and dragged her through the front room, saying, 'The room _is_
here--it is all right.'

"It seemed for a minute as if my mother would faint. She clung to me in
terror. I can remember now how strained her eyes looked and how pale she
was.

"I called out to Aunt Hannah and asked her when they had had the closet
taken away and the little room built; for in my excitement I thought
that that was what had been done.

"'That little room has always been there,' said Aunt Hannah, 'ever since
the house was built.'

"'But mamma said there wasn't any little room here, only a china-closet,
when she was here with papa,' said I.

"'No, there has never been any china-closet there; it has always been
just as it is now,' said Aunt Hannah.

"Then mother spoke; her voice sounded weak and far off. She said,
slowly, and with an effort, 'Maria, don't you remember that you told me
that there had _never been any little room he