"That is very strange," said her great-great-grandmother, when
Letitia had finished. "We have a little green door, too; only ours is
on the outside of the house, in the north wall. There's a spruce tree
growing close up against it that hides it, but it is there. Our
parents have forbidden us to open it, too, and we have never
disobeyed."

She said the last with something of an air of superior virtue.
Letitia felt terribly ashamed.

"Is there any key to your little green door?" she asked meekly.

For answer her great-great-grandmother opened the secret drawer of
the chest again, and pulled out a key with a green ribbon in it, the
very counterpart of the one in the satin-wood box.

Letitia looked at it wistfully.

"I should never think of disobeying my parents, and opening the
little green door," remarked her great-great-grandmother, as she put
back the key in the drawer. "I should think something dreadful would
happen to me. I have heard it whispered that the door opened into the
future. It would be dreadful to be all alone in the future, without
one's kins-folk."

"There may not be any Indians or catamounts there," ventured Letitia.

"There might be something a great deal worse," returned her
great-great-grandmother severely.