th rattle
with her vigorous folding.

"All nonsense," assented Kittie, down on her knees before the trunk.
"Now hand me the things and I'll pack. Kat, you're knocking everything
off the table, the way you whisk those skirts around. Hand me the black
dress; that's the heaviest and must go in first."

"Where's the other black tip?" asked Bea, who was trimming the
travelling hat. "There it is, you blew it behind the table with your
whirlwind of skirts; hand it to me, Kat."

"What fun it is to pack and go away," said Kat, fishing out the desired
feather with Olive's parasol. "You pack like a captain, Kittie. I'd most
likely have put her best hat in the first thing, shoe polish next, and
then tumbled in anything that I happened to lay my hands on. Dear me, I
wish I was going."

"I really think it's too bad that you haven't a party dress, Olive,"
said Kittie, with some disapproval.

"Whatever would she do with a party dress," cried Kat, once more
enthroned on the foot-board. "Who'd give a party, I'd like to know? One
old man, a little girl, and a pile of servants!"

"Young Mr. Congreve is there," corrected Bea.

"S'pose he is; and anyhow, I hope you'll snub him, Olive; he's going to
own Congreve Hall, and it ought to have been papa's. If he was a decent
man he wouldn't take it. How are you going to treat him?"

"I don't know;--yes, I like the feather that way; you ought to see how
nicely my dress hangs," said Olive, in a little flutter of pleasing
excitement. "Really, it's quite nice getting ready to go away. I only
wish the visit was over and done with, and all this preparation was for
sending me off to study."

"Don't worry about your studying, you're twice as smart now as any of
us," said Bea, surveying her work, from its perch on her finger. "Now
try this on, Olive, I've tipped the feather a little more to one side,
and it looks more jaunty--just the thing too; isn't that becoming
girls?"

"Perfectly mag!" exclaimed Kat, making an eye-glass of her hands, and
falling into a rapture of admiration that pretty near upset her from the
foot-board.

"I declare, you're going to be very distinguished looking, Olive," said
Kittie, resting from her packing to survey, and pass an opinion. "And a
cocked hat is very becoming. The next thing we hear, you will be
creating a sensation in Staunton that will shake the whole of Virginia."

"Very likely," laughed Olive; but she looked pleased, for there was
honest admiration i