I ain't
a-goin' to have Mary Ellen worried. She's different from me. She went
to school, same's you have, an' she's different somehow. She's been
meddled with all her life, an' I'll be whipped if she sha'n't make a
new start. Should you jest as lieves ask Sadie or John?"
"Why, yes," said Isabel wonderingly; "or do it myself. I don't see why
you care."
Aunt Luceba wiped her beaded face with a large handkerchief.
"I dunno either," she owned, in an exhausted voice. "I guess it's
al'ays little things you can't stand. Big ones you can butt ag'inst.
There! I feel better, now I've told ye. Here's the key. Should you jest
as soon open it?"
Isabel drew the chest forward with a vigorous pull of her sturdy arm.
She knelt before it and inserted the key. Aunt Luceba rose and leaned
over her shoulder, gazing with the fascination of horror. At the moment
the lid was lifted, a curious odor filled the room.
"My soul!" exclaimed Aunt Luceba. "O my soul!" She seemed incapable of
saying more; and Isabel, awed in spite of herself, asked, in a
whisper:--
"What's that smell? I know, but I can't think."
"You take out that parcel," said aunt Luceba, beginning to fan herself
with her handkerchief. "That little one down there't the end.
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