w of her child's coming. The cloth was none too fine
and the little garments were awkwardly cut and badly sewn, but every
stitch had been guided by a great love.

Araminta's first shoes were there, too--soft, formless things of
discoloured white kid. Folded in a yellowed paper was a tiny, golden
curl, snipped secretly, and marked on the outside: "Minty's hair."
Farther down in the trunk were the few relics of Miss Mehitable's
far-away girlhood.

A dog-eared primer, a string of bright buttons, a broken slate, a
ragged, disreputable doll, and a few blown birds' eggs carefully packed
away in a small box of cotton--these were her treasures. There was an
old autograph album with a gay blue cover which the years in the trunk
had not served to fade. Far down in the trunk was a package which Miss
Mehitable took out reverently. It was large and flat and tied with
heavy string in hard knots. She untied the knots patiently--her mother
had taught her never to cut a string.

Underneath was more paper, and more string. It took her half an hour
to bring to light the inmost contents of the package, bound in layer
after layer of fine muslin, but not tied. She unrolled the yellowed
cloth carefully, for it was very frail. At last she took out a
photograph--Anthony Dexter at three-and-twenty--and gazed at it long.

On one page of her autograph album was written an old rhyme. The ink
had faded so that it was scarcely legible, but Miss Hitty knew it by
heart:

"'If you love me as I love you
No knife can cut our love in two.'
Your sincere friend,
ANTHONY DEXTER."

Like a tiny sprig of lavender taken from a bush which has never
bloomed, this bit of romance lay far back in the secret places of her
life. She had a knot of blue ribbon which Anthony Dexter had once
given her, a lead pencil which he had gallantly sharpened, and which
she had never used.

Her life had been barren--Miss Mehitable knew that, and in her hours of
self-analysis, admitted it. She would gladly have taken Evelina's full
measure of suffering in exchange for one tithe of Araminta's joy.
After Anthony Dexter had turned from her to Evelina, Miss Mehitable had
openly scorned him. She had spent the rest of her life, since, in
showing him and the rest that men were nothing to her and that he was
least of all.

She had hovered near his patients simply for the sake of seeing
him--she did not care for them at all. She sat in the front window
t