looking forlornly at each other. I beg Tom's pardon—I suppose I should
have said the two children and the "young man." Probably never again in
his life will Tom feel quite as old as he felt in that sixteenth year.
Gypsy was the first to break the dismal silence.

"How horrid it's going to be! You go upstairs and she won't be there,
and there'll be nobody coming home from the store at night, and,
then—you go round, and it's so still, and nobody but me to keep house,
and Patty has just what she likes for breakfast, for all me, and _I_
think Aunt Miranda needn't have gone and been sick, anyway."

"A most sensible and sympathizing niece," observed Tom, in his
patronizing way.

"Well, you see, I suppose I don't care very much about Aunt Miranda,"
said Gypsy, confidentially. "I'm sorry she's sick, but I didn't have a
bit nice time in Boston last vacation, and she scolded me dreadfully
when I blew out the gas. What is it, Patty? Oh, yes—come to dinner,
boys."

"I say," remarked Winnie, at the rather doleful dinner-table, "look
here, Gypsy."

"What?"

[Illustration]

"S'posin' when they'd got Aunt Miranda all nailed into her
coffin—tight in—she should be _un_-deaded, and open her eyes, and
begin—begin to squeal, you know. S'pose they'd let her out?"