notice."

The night the lean old valise took on plumpness, Aunt Olivia went
often into Mary's little room. Many of the times she came out
very shortly with the child's "best" things trailing from her
arms, but once or twice she stayed rather long--long enough to
stand beside a little white bed and look down on a flushed little
face. A pair of wide-open eyes watched her smilingly from the
pillows, but they were not Rebecca Mary's eyes, and Olivicia was
altogether trustworthy.

An odd thing happened--but O1ivicia never told. Why should she
publish abroad that she had lain there and seen Aunt Olivia bend
once--bend twice--over Rebecca Mary and kiss her?

Softly, patiently, very wearily, Aunt Olivia went in and out. The
things she brought out in her arms she folded carefully and
packed, but not in the lank old valise. She put them all with
tender painstaking into a quaint little carpetbag. When the work
was done she set the bag away out of sight, and went about
packing her own things in the old valise.

The day before, she had been to see the minister and the
minister's wife. She called for them both, and sat down gravely
and made her proposition. It was startling only because of the
few words it took to make it. Otherwise it was very pleasant, and
the minister and the minister's wife received it with nods and
smiles.

"Of course, Miss Olivia--why, certainly!" smiled and nodded the