there, and this Cannon is none the youngest, accordin' to their
tell--nigh on to thirty, if not turned. It will make his bones ache, of
course. I am glad I know better than to treat visitors that way. The
comforter may stay, but I'll be bound I'll make it softer!" and stealing
up the stairs, Aunt Betsy brought down a second feather bed, much
lighter than the one already on, but still large enough to suggest the
thought of smothering. This she had made herself, intending it as a part
of Katy's "setting out," should she ever marry, and as things now seemed
tending that way, it was only right, she thought, that Mr. Cannon, as
she called him, should begin to have the benefit of it. Accordingly, the
handiwork of the girls was destroyed, and two beds, instead of one, were
placed beneath the comfortable, which Aunt Betsy permitted to remain.

"I'm mighty feared they'll find me out," she said, stroking, and
patting, and coaxing the beds to lie down, taking great pains in the
making, and succeeding so well that when her task was done there was no
perceptible difference between Helen's bed and hers, except that the
latter was a few inches higher than the former, and more nearly
resembled a pincushion in shape.

Carefully shutting the door, Aunt Betsy hurried away, feeling glad that
her nieces were too much engaged in training a vine over a frame to
afford them time for discovering what she had done. Katy, she knew, was
going to Linwood by and by, after various little things which Mrs.
Lennox thought indispensable to the entertaining of so great a man as
Wilford Cameron, and which the farmhouse did not possess, and as Helen
too would be busy, there was not much danger of detection.

It was late when the last thing was accomplished, and the sun was quite
low ere Katy was free to start on her errand, carrying the market basket