That very afternoon Stephen came in from school with a word for the
hour.

"The Stilkings are going to move right off to New Jersey," said he.
"Jim Stilking told me so. The doctor says his father can't stay here."

"Arctura Fish won't go," said Rosamond, instantly.

"Arctura Fish is as neat as a pin, and as smart as a steel trap," said
Barbara, regardless of elegance; "and--since nobody else will ever
dare to give in--I believe Arctura Fish is the very next thing, now,
for us!"

"It isn't giving in; it is going on," said Mrs. Holabird.

It certainly was not going back.

"We have got through ploughing-time, and now comes seed-time, and then
harvest," said Barbara. "We shall raise, upon a bit of renovated
earth, the first millennial specimen,--see if we don't!--of what was
supposed to be an extinct flora,--the _Domestica antediluviana_."

Arctura Fish came to us.

If you once get a new dress, or a new dictionary, or a new convenience
of any kind, did you never notice that you immediately have occasions
which prove that you couldn't have lived another minute without it? We
could not have spared Arctura a single day, after that, all winter.
Mother gave up, and was ill for a fortnight. Stephen twisted his foot
skating, and was laid up with a sprained ankle.

And then, in February, grandfather was taken with that last fatal
attack, and some of us had to be with Aunt Roderick nearly all the
time during the three weeks that he lived.

When they came to look through the papers there was no will found, of
any kind; neither was that deed of gift.

Aunt Trixie was the only one out of the family who knew anything about
it. She had been the "family bosom," Barbara said, ever since she
cuddled us up in our baby blankets, and told us "this little pig, and
that little pig," while she warmed our toes.

"Don't tell me!" said Aunt Trixie. Aunt Trixie never liked the
Roderick Holabirds.

We tried not to think about it, but it was not comfortable. It was,
indeed, a very serious anxiety and trouble that began, in consequence,
to force itself upon us.

After the bright, gay nights had come weary, vexing days. And the
worst was a vague shadow of family distrust and annoyance. Nobody
thought any real harm, nobody disbelieved or suspected; but there it
was. We could not think how such a declared determination and act of
Grandfather Holabird should have come to nothing. Uncle and Aunt
Roderick "could not see what we could exp