e home.

Lovingly, BETTINA.

P.S. I think I shall marry Jasper after all. He says he likes the
Presbyterian service.

I looked up from reading Eliza's letter. Tish was knitting quietly and
planning to give the money back to the town in the shape of a library,
and Aggie was holding a cubeb cigarette to her nose. Down on the tennis
court Jasper and Bettina were idly batting a ball round.

"I'm glad the Ellis man did not get her," said Aggie. And then, after a
sneeze, "How Jasper reminds me of Mr. Wiggins."

The library did not get the money after all. Tish sent it, as a wedding
present, to Bettina.

LIKE A WOLF ON THE FOLD

I

Aggie has always been in the habit of observing the anniversary of Mr.
Wiggins's death. Aggie has the anniversary habit, anyhow, and her life
is a succession: of small feast-days, on which she wears mental crape or
wedding garments--depending on the occasion. Tish and I always remember
these occasions appropriately, sending flowers on the anniversaries of
the passing away of Aggie's parents; grandparents; a niece who died in
birth; her cousin, Sarah Webb, who married a missionary and was
swallowed whole by a large snake,--except her shoes, which the reptile
refused and of which Aggie possesses the right, given her by the
stricken husband; and, of course, Mr. Wiggins.

For Mr. Wiggins Tish and I generally send the same things each
year--Tish a wreath of autumn foliage and I a sheaf of wheat tied with a
lavender ribbon. The program seldom varies. We drive to the cemetery in
the afternoon and Aggie places the sheaf and the wreath on Mr. Wiggins's
last resting-place, after first removing the lavender ribbon, of which
she makes cap bows through the year and an occasional pin-cushion or
fancy-work bag; then home to chicken and waffles, which had been Mr.
Wiggins's favorite meal. In the evening Charlie Sands generally comes in
and we play a rubber or two of bridge.

On the thirtieth anniversary of Mr. Wiggins's falling off a roof and
breaking his neck, Tish was late in arriving, and I found Aggie sitting
alone, dressed in black, with a tissue-paper bundle in her lap. I put my
sheaf on the table and untied my bonnet-strings.

"Where's Tish?" I asked.

"Not here yet."

Something in Aggie's tone made me look at her. She was eyeing the bundle
in her lap.

"I got a paler shade of ribbon this time," I said, seeing she made no
comment on the sheaf. "It's a better color for me if