key feathers that Miss Eliza had been saving carefully since the
winter previous. Arethusa had never had a feather on a hat before (only
ribbons, the year round), and she considered these feathers the height
of elegance. Her hair was fixed on the top of her head for the very
first time in her life, a graduation from the long red plait just for
this glorious Visit. Her feeling about that heavy, unbecomingly
arranged roll, and the hairpins which held it in place, was an
indescribable mixture of pride and elation and satisfaction.

Clutched tightly in one white, cotton-gloved hand was Mandy's
contribution, a small, neatly tied-up box of lunch. Her extra money was
in a little bag on a string around her neck, where Miss Eliza had also
deposited the trunk check. There was only the tiniest possible amount
of change in her purse. She carried a hand-satchel so ancient in
appearance that it might have been the forerunner of all hand-satchels,
and her trunk was a wee round-topped affair of red leather with a
canvas cover. It was a trunk which had been last viewed by the public
when Miss Eliza and Miss Letitia attended the Centennial Exposition in
Philadelphia. Miss Eliza was not one to expend money for anything, when
what she already had was still perfectly good, albeit a trifle out of
date.

Miss Eliza scorned to show her feelings as did Miss Letitia when she
told Arethusa good-bye. Consequently, she was even gruffer than usual
as she adjured the departing one not to make a fool of herself.

Mandy wept openly. Putting her head into a lion's mouth held no more
unknown terrors for Mandy than the making of a journey.

And Timothy prepared to wring Arethusa's hand almost off when it was
his turn to say farewell; he thought it was the most expression of his
affectionate unhappiness at seeing her leave them that would be
permitted him. But she held her face up to him in the most natural
manner to be kissed, just as she had held it up to Miss Eliza and Miss
Letitia and his mother; so Timothy, after a brief moment of hesitation
and remembrance of what Arethusa had said so emphatically about
kissing, took what the gods were offering and imprinted a very modest
salute on the sweet, upturned face.

Arethusa was so excited that she scarcely heard all of Miss Eliza's
last instructions, and she bade some of her party adieu more than once.
Timothy claimed the privilege of helping her on the train and escorting
her into the coach, and he de