o many times in her dreamings. She wished Aunt Olivia would let her
pack it now. She knew just where she would put everything--her
best dress and Aunt Olivia's (for of course they would wear their
second-bests), their best hats and shoes and gloves. Their nightgowns
she would roll tightly and put in one end, for it doesn't hurt
nightgowns to be rolled tightly. Of course she would not put
anything heavy, like hair brushes and shoes and things, on top of
anything--unless it was the nightgowns, for it doesn't hurt--

"Oh, Olivicia--oh, Olivicia, how I hope she'll say, 'Rebecca Mary, you
may pack the valise'! I could do it with my eyes shut, I've done it so
many, many times!"

But Aunt Olivia did not say it. One day and then another went by without
her saying it, and then one morning Rebecca Mary knew by the plump,
well-fed aspect of the valise that it was packed. Aunt Olivia had packed
it in the night.

There was no one else in the room when Rebecca Mary made her
disappointing little discovery. She went over to the plump valise and
prodded it gently with her finger. But it is so difficult to tell in
that way whether your own best dress, your own best hat, best shoes,
best gloves, are in there. Rebecca Mary hurried upstairs and looked in
her closet and in her "best" bureau drawer.

They were not there! In her relief she caught up the beautiful being and
strained her hard, lifeless little body to her own warm breast. If she
had not been Rebecca Mary, she would have danced about the room.

"Oh, I'm so relieved, Olivicia!" she laughed, softly. "If they're not up
here, THEY'RE DOWN THERE. They've got to be somewhere. They're in that
valise--valise--vali-i-ise!"

Rebecca Mary had never been to a city, and within her remembrance Aunt
Olivia had never been. Curiosity was not a Plummer trait, hence Rebecca
Mary had never asked many questions about the remote period before her
own advent into Aunt Olivia's life. The same Plummer restraint kept her
now from asking questions. There was nothing to do but wait, but the
waiting was illumined by her joyous anticipations.

Oddly enough, Aunt Olivia seemed to have no anticipations--at least
joyous ones. Her, thin, grave face may even have looked a little thinner
and graver, IF Rebecca Mary had thought to notice.

The night the lean old valise took on plumpness, Aunt Olivia went often
into Mary's little room. Many of the times she came out very shortly
with the child's "best" things