ound time to read. This involved
taking her French dictionary, as she doubted if her grandfather had one.
She ought to put in a "Botany," if they were to study trees; but she
could not tell which, so she would take all there were. She might as
well take all her dresses, and it was no harm if one had too many wraps.
When she had her trunk packed, she found it over-full; it was difficult
to shut it. She had heard Solomon John set out from the front door with
his father and the little boys, and Agamemnon was busy holding the horse
at the side door, so there was no use in calling for help. She got upon
the trunk; she jumped upon it; she sat down upon it, and, leaning over,
found she could lock it! Yes, it was really locked.

But, on getting down from the trunk, she found her dress had been caught
in the lid; she could not move away from it! What was worse, she was so
fastened to the trunk that she could not lean forward far enough to
turn the key back, to unlock the trunk and release herself! The lock had
slipped easily, but she could not now get hold of the key in the right
way to turn it back.

She tried to pull her dress away. No, it was caught too firmly. She
called for help to her mother or Amanda, to come and open the trunk. But
her door was shut.

Nobody near enough to hear! She tried to pull the trunk toward the door,
to open it and make herself heard; but it was so heavy that, in her
constrained position, she could not stir it. In her agony, she
would have been willing to have torn her dress; but it was her
travelling-dress, and too stout to tear. She might cut it carefully.
Alas, she had packed her scissors, and her knife she had lent to the
little boys the day before! She called again. What silence there was in
the house! Her voice seemed to echo through the room. At length, as she
listened, she heard the sound of wheels.

Was it the carriage, rolling away from the side door? Did she hear the
front door shut? She remembered then that Amanda was to "have the day."
But she, Elizabeth Eliza, was to have spoken to Amanda, to explain to
her to wait for the expressman. She was to have told her as she went
downstairs. But she had not been able to go downstairs! And Amanda must
have supposed that all the family had left, and she, too, must have
gone, knowing of the expressman. Yes, she heard the wheels! She heard
the front door shut!

But could they have gone without her? Then she recalled that she had
proposed wal