poor little Elmira whimpered; but her brother hushed her, angrily.

"Don't you know enough to keep still--a great big girl like you?" he
said.

"Jerome, I have. I 'ain't cried a mite before her, and she couldn't
hear that," whispered Elmira, chokingly.

"Mother's got awful sharp ears, you know she has," insisted Jerome.
"Now I'm goin' away, and don't you let anybody come in here while I'm
gone and bother mother."

"I'll have to let Cousin Paulina Maria and Aunt Belinda in, if they
come," said Elmira, staring at him wonderingly. Neither she nor her
mother knew that Paulina Maria had already been there and been turned
away.

"You just lock the house up, and not go to the door," said Jerome,
decisively.

Elmira kept staring at him, as if she doubted her eyes and ears. She
felt a certain awe of her brother. "Where you goin'?" she inquired,
half timidly.

"I'll tell you when I get back," replied Jerome. He went out with
dignity, and Elmira heard him on the stairs. "He's goin' to dress
up," she thought.

She sat down by the window, well behind the curtain, that any one
approaching might not see her, and waited. She had wakened that