was too stunned to reply. He went on, utterly oblivious of my consternation:
"And I am going to use your wheel while you are gone, if you don't mind, to take the girls out on. I know some awfully nice girls who can ride, but their wheels are last year's make, and they won't ride them. I'd rather like to be able to offer them a new wheel."
"I am not going to take all my party dresses. Have you any use for them?" I said.
"Why, what's the matter? Won't you let me have your rooms?"
"Merciful heavens, child! I should say not!"
"Why, I haven't asked you for much," said my small, modest brother. "You offered."
"Well, just wait till I offer the rest. But I'll tell you what I will do, Ted. If you will promise not to go into my rooms and rummage once while I am gone, and not to touch my wheel, I'll buy you a tandem, and then you can take the girls on that."
"I'd rather have you bring me some things from Europe," said my shrinking brother.
"All right. I'll do that, but let me off this thing. I am so tired I can't move. You'll have to walk it back and give me five cents to ride home on the car."
I crawled in to breakfast more dead than alive.
"What's the matter, dearie? Did you ride too far?" asked mamma.
"I don't know whether I rode too far or whether it was Ted's asking if he couldn't use my rooms while I was gone, but something has made me tired. What's that? Whom is papa talking to over the telephone?"
Papa came in fuming and fretting.
"Who was it this time?" I questioned, with anticipation. Inquiries over the telephone were sure to be interesting to me just now.
"Somebody who wanted to know what train you were going on, but would not give his name. He was inquiring for a friend, he said, and wouldn't give his friend's name either."
"Didn't you tell him?" I cried, in distress.
"Certainly not. I told him nobody but an idiot would withhold his name."
Papa calls such a variety of men idiots.
"Oh, but it was probably only flowers or candy. Why didn't you tell him? Have you no sentiment?"
"I won't have you receiving anonymous communications," he retorted, with the liberty fathers have a little way of taking with their daughters.
"But flowers," I pleaded. "It is no harm to send flowers without a card. Don't you see?" Oh, how hard it is to explain a delicate point like that to one's father—in broad daylight! "I am supposed to know who sent them!"
"But would you know?" asked my practical ancestor.
"Not—not exactly. But it would be almost sure to be one of them."
Ted shouted. But there was nothing funny in what I said. Boys are so silly.
"Anyway, I am sorry you didn't tell him," I said.
"Well, I'm not," declared papa.
The rest of the day fairly flew. The last night came, and the baby was put to bed. I undressed him, which he regarded as such a joke that he worked himself into a fever of excitement. He loves to scrub like Josie, the cook. I had bought him a little red pail, and I gave it to him that night when he was partly undressed, and he was so enchanted with it that he scampered around hugging it, and saying, "Pile! pile!" like a little Cockney. He gave such squeals of ecstasy that everybody came into the nursery to find him scrubbing his crib with a nail-brush and little red pail.
"Who gave you the pretty pail, Billy?" asked Aunt Lida, who was sitting by the crib.
"Tattah," said Billy, in a whisper. He always whispers my name.
"Then go and kiss dear auntie. She is going away on the big boat to stay such a long time."
Billy's face sobered. Then he dropped his precious pail, and came and licked my face like a little dog, which is his way of kissing.
I squeezed him until he yelled.
"Don't let him forget me," I wailed. "Talk to him about me every day. And buy him a toy out of my money often, and tell him Tattah sent it to him. Oh, oh, he'll be grown up when I come home!"
"Don't cry, dearie," said Aunt Lida, handing me her handkerchief. "I'll see that your grave is kept green."
My sister appeared at the door. She was all ready to start. She even had her veil on.
"What do you mean by exciting Billy so at this time of night?" she said. "Go out, all of you. We'll lose the train. Hush, somebody's at the telephone. Papa's talking to that same man again." I jumped up and ran out.
"Let me answer it, papa dear! Yes, yes, yes, certainly. To-night on the Pennsylvania. You're quite welcome. Not at all." I hung up the telephone.
I could hear papa in the nursery:
"She actually told him—after all I said this morning! I never heard of anything like it."
Two or three voices were raised in my defence. Ted slipped out into the hall.
"Bully for you," he whispered. "You'll get the flowers all right at the train. Who do you s'pose they're from? Another box just came for you. Say, couldn't you leave that smallest box of violets in the silver box? I want to give them to a girl, and you've got such loads of others."
"Don't ask her for those," answered my dear sister, "they are the most precious of all!"
"I can't give you any of mine," I said, "but I'll buy you a box for her—a small box," I added hastily.
"The carriages have come, dears," quavered grandmamma, coming out of the nursery, followed by the family, one after the other.
"Get her satchels, Teddy. Her hat is upstairs. Her flowers are in the hall. She left her ulster on my bed, and her books are on the window-sill," said mamma. She wouldn't look at me. "Remember, dearie, your medicines are all labelled, and I put needles in your work-box all threaded. Don't sit in draughts and don't read in a dim light. Have a good time and study hard and come back soon. Good—bye, my girlie. God bless you!"
By this time no handkerchief would have sufficed for my tears. I reached out blindly, and Ted handed me a towel.
"I've got a sheet when you've sopped that," he said. Boys are such brutes.
Aunt Lida said, "Good-bye, my dearest. You are my favorite niece. You know I love you the best."
I giggled, for she tells my sister the same thing always.
"Nobody seems to care much that I am going," said Bee, mournfully.
"But you are coming back so soon, and she is going to stay so long," exclaimed grandmamma, patting Bee.
"I'll bet she doesn't stay a year," cried Ted.
"I'll
