it.

"Looking forward with great pleasure to my visit with you, and
hoping that this may find you in the enjoyment of such a measure of
health as your advanced years may allow, I am, my dear Aunt,

"Your affectionate niece,
"MARIA DARRACOTT PRYOR."

"When you have finished it, you may put it into the fire," said Mrs.
Tree. "Bah! what did she say to you? Cat! I don't mean you, Vesta."

But Miss Vesta, with all her dove-like qualities, had something of the
wisdom of the serpent, and had no idea of repeating what Mrs. Pryor had
said to her. Several phrases rose to her mind,--"Aunt Marcia's few
remaining days on earth," "precarious spiritual condition of which
reports have reached me," "spontaneous distribution of family property,"
etc.,--and she rejoiced in being able to say calmly, "I did not bring
the letter with me, Aunt Marcia. Maria speaks of her intended visit, and
seems to look forward with much pleasure to--"

"Vesta Blyth," said Mrs. Tree, "look me in the eye!"

"Yes, dear Aunt Marcia," said the little lady. Her soft brown eyes met
fearlessly the black sparks which gleamed from under Mrs. Tree's
eyebrows. She smiled, and laid her hand gently on that of the elder
woman.

"There is no earthly use in your smiling at me, Vesta," the old lady
went on. "I see nothing whatever to smile about. I wish simply to say,
as I have said before, that after I am dead you may do as you please;
but I am not dead yet, and while I live, Maria Darracott sets no foot in
this house."

"Dear Aunt Marcia!"

"No foot in this house!" repeated Mrs. Tree. "Not the point of her toe,
if she had a point. She was born splay-footed, and I suppose she'll die
so. Not the point of her toe!"

Miss Vesta was silent for a moment. If she were only like Phoebe! She
must try her best to do as Phoebe would have wished.

"Aunt Marcia," she said, "you have always been so near and dear--so very
near and so infinitely dear and kind, to us,--especially to Nathaniel
and me, and to Nathaniel's children,--that I fear you sometimes forget
the fact that Maria is precisely the same relation to you that we are."

"Cat's foot, fiddlestick, folderol, fudge!" remarked Mrs. Tree, blandly.

"Dear Aunt Marcia, do not speak so, I beg of you. Only think, Uncle
James, Maria's father, was your own brother."

"His wife wasn't my own sister!" said Mrs. Tree, grimly. Then she blazed
out suddenly. "Vesta Blyth, you are a goo