said Aunt Amanda, "there's no place like the Old Tobacco
Shop, after all. I wouldn't exchange it for a palace if you'd give it to
me."

"Wouldn't you?" said Freddie, a little surprised at this.

"I should say not. I wouldn't be myself in a palace. I'm pretty well
satisfied here."

"But what about the children?" said Freddie.

"The children?" asked Aunt Amanda.

"Yes. Robert and Jenny and James. _You_ know."

Aunt Amanda looked at him for a moment, and then nodded her head and
sighed.

"Yes," she said. "You know about them, don't you? I forgot that you
knew. Yes, I miss them a good deal, and I suppose I even cry sometimes
because I haven't got them. But I love to think about them. I'm happy
thinking about them, even if I can't have them."

"James was the littlest," said Freddie.

"Yes," said Aunt Amanda, nodding her head to herself as if at a gentle
memory.

"He was too little to go out much with the others," said Freddie.

"Yes," said Aunt Amanda, "he was too little."

"And Jenny," said Freddie, "she wouldn't go with Robert the day he ran
away. He wanted her to, but she wouldn't."

"No," said Aunt Amanda, "she wouldn't."

"He was gone all day," said Freddie.

"Yes," said Aunt Amanda, "he was gone all day, and he didn't get back
until after dark. I didn't know where he was. When he got back it was
dark, and he was muddy all over. I was terribly worried."

THE END.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Old Tobacco Shop, by William Bowen

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD TOBACCO SHOP ***

***** This file should be named 26977.txt or 26977.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/9/7/26977/

Produced by David Edwards, Katie Ward and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)

Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm