e nearly fifteen."

"Suppose I am. Besides I'm not; it's three months yet."

"Well," said Kittie, after a pause, and turning a corner in her
handkerchief with great nicety, "I suppose since it's settled, that he
will be here in a few days. Bea has fixed his room so pretty."

"Pooh! I bet he'll never notice it, and he'll be an everlasting bother,
and we'll never have any more fun; and I'm going to tell him the minute
he gets here, that I hate him; and I hope that'll make him happy and
want to stay," exclaimed Kat vehemently.

"Besides," continued Kittie, as placidly as though nothing was
disturbing the serenity of her sister, "you see, my dear, how it will
help mama."

Any remark of a like character, would, at any time, reduce the girls
from the most active rebellion to passive acquiescence; and Kat
immediately lost her ferocious determination and looked reflective, as
she recalled the dear face they loved, with its pale patient sweetness,
and the gray hair that had all come into the brown locks within the last
year, since Ernestine went away.

"Well," she said in a moment, and beginning to swing, "I suppose it's
all right, but I wish he wasn't so old. Twenty! my goodness! He'll be
forever lecturing us and reading solemn books, because I know he's
solemn; sick people always are, and everything will have to be poky and
still to suit him, and I think it's abominable!"

"Exactly," answered Kittie, with a nod of agreement. "But Kat, there's
one splendid big thing to offset all those little horrid ones; why don't
you think of that?"

"Well, I do, and I'm most tickled to death, that mama won't have to
teach any more; poor, dear, blessed mama, she's most tired and worried
to death;" and Kat's face grew very tender as she swung and thought over
it all.

"Oh Kat!" cried Kittie, with a sudden vehemence, though the question
that hung on her lips had been asked countless times in the past year,
"Where do you suppose Ernestine is?"

Kat stopped the swing, and faced her sister with a sudden decision.

"I think," she said slowly, "Kittie, I think she's--dead!"

"Oh no! you don't surely! She can't be!" cried Kittie in terror; for no
one had ever hazarded that cruel belief before. "Our Ernestine dead! I
couldn't believe it, and I think it would kill mama, if she thought we
would never find her again."

"But I can't help but feel so," said Kat sadly. "Just think of her
getting into New York in the night, and not knowing an