imultaneous with the china from
the closet, brings up a basket of bottles from the cellar to be washed
and rinsed. She took one room at a time, settling as she went along, so
that her house never was in that state of dire confusion which so many
houses present every fall and spring. Her house was not hard to clean,
and the chambers were soon done, except Ethie's own room, where Aunt
Barbara lingered longest, turning the pretty ingrain carpet the
brightest side up, rubbing the furniture with polish, putting a bit of
paint upon the window sills where it was getting worn, and once
revolving the propriety of hanging new paper upon the wall. But that,
she reasoned, would be needless expense. Since the night Richard spent
there, five years ago, no one had slept there, and no one should sleep
there, either, till Ethie came back again.

"Till Ethie comes again." Aunt Barbara rarely said that now, for with
each fleeting year the chance for Ethie's coming grew less and less,
until now she seldom spoke of it to Betty, the only person to whom she
ever talked of Ethie. Even with her she was usually very reticent,
unless something brought the wanderer to mind more vividly than usual.
Cleaning her room was such an occasion, and sitting down upon the floor,
while she darned a hole in the carpet which the turning had brought to
view, Aunt Barbara spoke of her darling, and the time when, a little
toddling thing of two years old, she first came to the homestead, and
was laid in that very room, and "on that very pillow," Aunt Barbara
said, seeing again the round hollow left by the little brown head when
the child awoke and stretched its fat arms toward her.

"Julia, her mother, died in that bed," Aunt Barbara went on, "and Ethie
always slept there after that. Well put on the sheets marked with her
name, Betty, and the ruffled pillow-cases. I want it to seem as if she
were here," and Aunt Barbara's chin quivered, and her eyes grew moist,
as her fat, creasy hands smoothed and patted the plump pillows, and
tucked in the white spread, and picked up a feather, and moved a chair,
and shut the blinds, and dropped the curtains, and then she went softly
out and shut the door behind her.

Two weeks from that day, the soft, bland air was full of sleet, and
snow, and rain, which beat down the poor daffies on the borders, and
pelted the onions, and lettuce, and peas which Uncle Billy had planted,
and dashed against the closed windows of Ethie's room,