her mother, Grandma Anderson, same as Father wanted them to name
me. Mercy! I'm glad they didn't. "Mary" is bad enough, but "Abigail
Jane"--!)

Well, Mother read the letter aloud, then she began to talk about
it--how she felt, and how awful it was to think of giving me up six
whole months, and sending her bright little sunny-hearted Marie into
that tomb-like place with only an Abigail Jane to flee to for refuge.
And she said that she almost wished Nurse Sarah was back again--that
she, at least, was human.

"'And see that she's properly met,' indeed!" went on Mother, with an
indignant little choke in her voice. "Oh, yes, I know! Now if it were
a star or a comet that he expected, he'd go himself and sit for hours
and hours watching for it. But when his daughter comes, he'll send
John with the horses, like enough, and possibly that precious Abigail
Jane of his. Or, maybe that is too much to expect. Oh, Hattie, I can't
let her go--I can't, I can't!"

I was in the window-seat around the corner of the chimney, reading;
and I don't know as she knew I was there. But I was, and I heard. And
I've heard other things, too, all this week.

I'm to go next Monday, and as it comes nearer the time Mother's
getting worse and worse. She's so unhappy over it. And of course that
makes me unhappy, too. But I try not to show it. Only yesterday, when
she was crying and hugging me, and telling me how awful it was that
her little girl should have to suffer, too, I told her not to worry
a bit about me; that I wasn't suffering at all. I _liked_ it. It was
ever so much more exciting to have two homes instead of one. But she