They came slowly; they stopped to speak to the
teacher. Aunt Lucretia reached young Lucretia first.
"What have you got there?" she asked. She did not look cross, but a good
deal surprised. Young Lucretia just gazed miserably up at her. "Why
don't you undo them?" asked Aunt Lucretia. Young Lucretia shook her head
helplessly. "Why, what makes you act so, child?" cried Aunt Lucretia,
getting alarmed. Then Aunt Maria came up, and there was quite a little
group around young Lucretia. She began to cry. "What on earth ails the
child?" said Aunt Lucretia. She caught up one of the parcels and opened
it; it was a book bound in red and gold. She held it close to her eyes;
she turned it this way and that; she examined the fly-leaf. "Why," said
she, "it's the old gift-book Aunt Susan gave me when I was eighteen
years old! What in the world!"
Aunt Maria had undone another. "This is the _Floral Album_," she said,
tremulously; "we always keep it in the north parlor on the table. Here's
my name in it. I don't see--"
Aunt Lucretia speechlessly unmuffled a clove apple and a nautilus shell
that had graced the parlor shelf; then a little daintily dressed rag
doll with cheeks stained pink with cranberry juice appeared. When young
Lucretia spied this last she made a little grab at it.
"Oh," she sobbed, "somebody did hang this on for me! They did--they did!
It's mine!"
It never seemed to young Lucretia that she walked going home that night;
she had a feeling that only her tiptoes occasionally brushed the earth;
she went on rapidly, with a tall aunt on either side.
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