y, fired with the thought of privy conspiracy
and rebellion. "Mother would be so comfortable with Polly, and
I'd help Van in the store, when I've learned that confounded
multiplication table," he added with a groan; "and if Aunt Kipp comes
a visiting, we'll just say 'Not at home,' and let her trot off again."

"It sounds very nice, but aunt will be dreadfully offended and I don't
wish to be ungrateful," said Mrs. Snow, brightening visibly.

"There's no ingratitude about it," cried Van. "She might have done
everything to make you love, and respect, and admire her, and been a
happy, useful, motherly, old soul; but she didn't choose to, and now
she must take the consequences. No one cares for her, because she
cares for nobody; her money's the plague of her life, and not a single
heart will ache when she dies."

"Poor Aunt Kipp!" said Polly, softly.

Mrs. Snow echoed the words, and for a moment all thought pitifully of
the woman whose life had given so little happiness, whose age had won
so little reverence, and whose death would cause so little regret.
Even Toady had a kind thought for her, as he broke the silence, saying
soberly,--

"You'd better put tails on my jackets, mother; then the next time we
get run away with, Aunt Kipp will have something to hold on by."

It was impossible to help laughing at the recollection of the old lady
clutching at the boy till he had hardly a button left, and at the
paternal air with which he now proposed a much-desired change of
costume, as if intent on Aunt Kipp's future accommodation.

Under cover of the laugh, the old lady stole back to bed, wide awake,
and with subjects enough to meditate upon now. The shaking up had
certainly done her good, for somehow the few virtues she possessed
came to the surface, and the mental shower-bath just received had
produced a salutary change. Polly wouldn't have doubted her aunt's
possession of a heart, if she could have known the pain and loneliness
that made it ache, as the old woman crept away; and Toady wouldn't
have laughed if he had seen the tears on the face, between the big
frills, as Aunt Kipp laid it on the pillow, muttering, drearily,--

"I might have been a happy, useful woman, but I didn't choose to, and
now it's too late."

It _was_ too late to be all she might have been, for the work of
seventy selfish years couldn't be undone in a minute. But with regret,
rose the sincere wish to earn a little love before the end came, and
t