e urged.

Ever since he could speak at all, he had had a fashion of whispering to
her anything that seemed to him especially important or precious, even
when, as now, they were quite alone. He put his lips to her ear.

"What is it, dearest? I can't hear you!"

"I said," he said softly, his lips almost touching her cheek, "that I
would like to go back to New York just with you, and have you take me
out in the snow again, and have you let me make chocolate custard, the
way you always did--for just our own supper, our two selves. I like all
my aunts and every one here, but I get lonesome."

"Lonesome?" she echoed, trying to laugh over a little pang.

"Lonesome--for you!" he answered simply. Martie caught him to her and
smothered him in her embrace.

"You little troubadour!" she laughed, with her kiss.

The three sisters had never been so much together in their lives as
they were when the time came to demolish the old home. Sally, with a
train of dancing children, came up every morning after breakfast, and
she and Martie and Lydia patiently plodded through store-rooms, attics,
and closets that had not been disturbed for years.

Lydia's constant cry was: "Ah, don't destroy that; I remember that ever
since I was a baby!" Sally was more apt to say: "I believe I could use
this; it's old, but it could be put in order cheaper than buying new!"
Martie was the iconoclast.

"Now here's this great roll of silk from Grandmother Price's wedding
dress; what earthly good is this to any one?" she would demand briskly.
"And here's the patchwork quilt Ma started when Len was a baby, with
all the patches pinned together! Why should we keep these things? And
Lydia's sketch-books, when she was taking lessons, and the old
air-tight stove, and Pa's brother's dentist chair--it's hopelessly
old-fashioned now! And what about these piles and piles of Harper's and
Scribner's, and the broken washstand that was in Belle's, room and the
curtains, that used to be in the back hall? I move we have a bonfire
and keep it going all day--"

"I'd forgotten that the old rocking-horse was here," Sally said one
day, with pleasure. "The boys will love it! And do you know, Lyd, I was
thinking that this little table with the leg mended and painted white
wouldn't be a bit bad in my hall. I really need a table there, for Joe
brings in his case, or the children get the mail--we'd have lots of use
for it. And here's the bedside table, that's an awfully good th