flowers. Mrs. Williams went up-stairs, presently returning with a long,
narrow box of some dark wood.

"You've heard me speak of your Aunt Matilda," she said, seating herself
and folding her hands over the box. "Well, this box and the things in it
belonged to her, and when she died, she willed it to you, because she
hadn't any children of her own, and you were the only girl in the
family. I've been intendin' for some time to give it to you, and there's
no time like to-day." She opened the box, took out a roll of shining
silken tissue such as comes from the looms of the Orient, and threw its
soft folds across her daughter's lap. Then from the scented darkness of
the treasure box she drew out a bertha and sleeves of filmy lace and
laid them on the silk.

"That lace cost a small fortune," she observed. "Your Uncle Harvey was a
merchant, and whenever he went to the East to buy his goods, he'd bring
your Aunt Matilda a fine present. This lace was the last thing he ever
brought her, and--poor thing!--she didn't live to wear it."

Anna Belle had dropped her work on the floor and was fingering the lace
and silk in a rapture of admiration.

"O Mother," she breathed, "I never saw anything so beautiful! Is it
really mine?"

She shook out the folds of silk, gathered them in her hands, and held
them off to note their graceful fall. She laid the bertha across her
shoulders and ran to a mirror, laughing at the effect of the costly lace
over the striped gingham; she pushed the sleeves of her dress up to her
elbows and slipped the lace sleeves over her bare, slender arms. Her
eyes gleamed with excitement, her lips were parted in a smile of happy
girlhood, and the mother, watching with quiet satisfaction, read the
thought in the girl's heart.

"Be careful, Anna Belle," she warned, "you'll wrinkle the goods. Here,
fold it this way and lay it smooth in your trunk. You may not need it
now, but some day it will come in handy."

Anna Belle held the silk and lace on her outstretched hands and carried
it up-stairs as tenderly as she would have carried a newborn babe. She
lingered in her room a long time and came down silent and dreamy-eyed.
All the afternoon she embroidered leaf and flower on the linen gown,
while in imagination she was fashioning a wedding robe of silk and lace
and beholding herself a bride. When the clock struck five, Mrs. Williams
rose hurriedly from her chair and gathered up the lapful of mending.

"Go up-stairs, A