This being the last time she would be at home for the entire week, she concluded she ought to make the most of it, but first she must get together such things as she should want for Monday. “Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, and Monday, too. There are only four, after all,” she said, counting the days on her fingers. “It seems very much longer when you first think of it.” And then, as she continued to think, to her surprise she discovered that only Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays would be the entire days she would spend away from home.

She was so interested in having found this out that she ran upstairs to her mother, to tell of it. “Mother,” she said, “I have made a discovery.”

“You have, and what is it?” said Mrs. Conway.

“Why, here I’ve been thinking I’d be away from you the whole week all but Saturday and Sunday, and now I find out I shall see you every day but three, ’cause, you know, I don’t start till after breakfast on Monday, so that’s one day. Then Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I don’t see you, but I get back in time for dinner on Friday, so there is Friday, Saturday and Sunday, three more days. Isn’t it fine?”

“Very, I think.”

“And the funny part is,” Edna went on busily thinking, “I am at school five days out of the seven. It’s almost like a puzzle, isn’t it? I think I shall take Ada with me and leave her there. She is used to it, and won’t mind as much as some of the other dolls, for she was there all last year and besides, Aunt Elizabeth gave her to me. Aunt Elizabeth is quite kind sometimes, isn’t she?”

“She means to be kind all the time, but she has rather a stern manner.”

“Did you used to be afraid of her when you were a little girl?”

“No, honey, because I didn’t know her. She is your papa’s aunt, you know.”

“And he told me he didn’t see much of her, for he lived in quite another place, and I suppose by the time he grew up he wasn’t afraid of anybody. Well, anyhow, I’m glad it won’t be ‘butter or molasses’ all the week.”

“What do you mean, dearie?”

“Why, you know we couldn’t have both and there were never any preserves. Sometimes there were stewed apples, the dried kind, and they were not so very bad when they were sweet enough and had a lot of lemon flavor in them. I used to ask Ellen to do them that way and she always would, except when Aunt Elizabeth was in the kitchen and then she had to do as Aunt Elizabeth told her. If you have more preserves than you can use, don’t you think you could send her some, mother? You see we shall not be here to eat them, Celia and I, and you won’t have to use so many.”

“That is an idea. Why, yes, I can send some in every week when you go, and Celia can tell Aunt Elizabeth to have them for your supper.”

“How will she tell her?” asked Edna, feeling that this was an ordeal that she would not like to go through.

“Why, it will be very easy to say, ‘Aunt Elizabeth, here are some preserves mother thought would be nice for supper to-night.’ Don’t you think that would be easy to say?”

“Ye-es,” returned Edna a little doubtful if this would have the proper effect. “I think myself it would be better to let Ellen have them or Uncle Justus.”

Her mother laughed. Edna’s awe of Aunt Elizabeth was so very apparent.

“There is one thing I wish you would promise,” the little girl went on, “and that is, that you will always have hot cakes on Saturday mornings so I can have butter and syrup both.”

“I promise,” replied her mother smiling.

“I know Louis is mighty glad not to be going back,” Edna continued, “and I’m rather glad he isn’t myself, for this year I shall have Celia.”

“I thought you were fond of Louis.”

“I am pretty fond of him, but I’d rather have girls about all the time than boys all the time. Girls fuss with you, of course. They get mad and won’t speak, but I’d liefer they’d do that than try to boss you the way boys do. Mother, there is another thing I wish you would do, and that is I wish you would tell Aunt Elizabeth that she will please let Dorothy come to play with me sometimes. Dorothy is my particular friend, you know, and Aunt Elizabeth will never allow me to have her visit me unless you say she can.”

“Did she never allow you to have company last winter?”

Edna shook her head and a sigh escaped her.

“I will arrange that Dorothy shall come,” said her mother quite firmly.

“It’s going to be much nicer than last year,” remarked Edna in a satisfied tone, “for I shall always have Celia to go to, and you will be so near, too, and besides I like Uncle Justus much better than I did at first.”

“Of the two I should think you would have more fear of Uncle Justus than of Aunt Elizabeth,” said her mother looking down at her.

“I did at first, but I found it was mostly on account of his eyebrows; they are so shaggy.”

Mrs. Conway smiled. “I have heard it said that he can be rather terrible,” she remarked.

“Oh, well, so he can, but he isn’t all the time and Aunt Elizabeth is.”

“I hope this year you will find out that it is only Aunt Elizabeth’s eyebrows, too.”

“It couldn’t be, for she hasn’t any to speak of,” returned Edna. As she talked she was carefully packing the little trunk in which Ada’s clothes were kept. It was a tiny trunk, only about six inches long. Aunt Elizabeth had made it, herself, by covering a box with leather and strapping the leather across with strips of wood glued on. Edna liked the trunk much better than a larger one which had been bought at the store. Aunt Elizabeth was very clever in making things of this kind and would sometimes surprise her little niece with some home-made gift which was the more prized because it was unusual. The child remembered this now and began to feel that she had not shown herself very grateful in speaking as she had done a moment before. “Mother,” she said. “I didn’t mean that Aunt Elizabeth was frightful all the time. She is very kind when she gives me things like this trunk.”

“You don’t mean frightful,” replied Mrs. Conway laughing, “you mean she is rather formidable.”

But that was too much of a word for Edna, though she did not say so. Having stowed away Ada’s belongings, three frocks, two petticoats, a red hood and sacque, a blue dressing-gown and apron, she shut the lid. “I don’t think I’ll take her furs this week because she’ll not need them,” she remarked, “and I don’t think I will take any of my other dolls because I will be so glad to see them next Friday. Mother, if you come into town any time during the week will you come out to see us?”

“If I have time I certainly shall.”

Edna gave a sigh of content. It was surely going to be much better than last year. “Mother,” she said, changing the subject, “do you think Cousin Ben is silly?”

“He can be rather silly but he can also be very sensible. He is silly only when he wants to tease or when he wants to amuse a little girl I know.”

“I like his silly better than some of the big girls’s sillies. They giggle so much and aren’t funny at all. I think he is very funny. He says such queer things about the trees and plants in the woods. He twists their names around so they mean something else. Like the dog-wood, bark, you know. Mother, what is hazing?”