e to hear her opinion whenever they asked for it; but
she herself seemed to grow younger, in these days, and Betty pleased her
immensely one day, when it was mentioned that a certain person who wore
caps, and was what Betty called "poky," was about Miss Barbara's age:
"Aunt Barbara, you are always the same age as anybody except a baby!"

"I must acknowledge that I feel younger than my grandniece, sometimes,"
said Aunt Barbara, with a funny little laugh; but Betty was puzzled to
know exactly what she meant.

* * * * *

In one corner of the upper story of the large old house there was a
delightful little place by one of the dormer-windows. It lighted the
crooked stairway which came up to the open garret-floor, and the way to
some bedrooms which were finished off in a row. Betty remembered playing
with her dolls in this pleasant little corner on rainy days, years
before, and revived its old name of the "cubby-house." Her father had
kept his guns and a collection of minerals there, in his boyhood. It was
over Betty's own room, and noises made there did not affect Aunt Mary's
nerves, while it was a great relief from the dignity of the east
bedroom, or, still more, the lower rooms of the house, to betake one's
self with one's friend to this queer-shaped, brown-raftered little
corner of the world. There was a great sea-chest under the eaves, and an
astounding fireboard, with a picture of Apollo in his chariot. There was
a shelf with some old brown books that everybody had forgotten, an old
guitar, and a comfortable wooden rocking-chair, beside Betty's favorite
perch in the broad window-seat that looked out into the tops of the
trees. Her father's boyish trophies of rose-quartz and beryl crystals
and mica were still scattered along on the narrow ledges of the old
beams, and hanging to a nail overhead were two dusty bunches of
pennyroyal, which had left a mild fragrance behind them as they
withered.

Betty had added to this array a toppling light-stand from another part
of the garret and a china mug which she kept full of fresh wild flowers.
She pinned "London Graphic" pictures here and there, to make a little
brightness, and there were some of her favorite artist's (Caldecott's)
sketches of country squires and dames, reproduced in faint bright
colors, which looked delightfully in keeping with their surroundings. As
midsummer came on the cubby-house grew too hot for comfort, but one
afternoon,