She gathered all his notes together, with the trifles she had treasured, even before she confessed to herself that she cared for him,--this odd stone from Mackerel Cove, that Chinese coin he took from his watch-guard one day as a reward for a joke she made, a dry and musty cracker upon which he drew at a picnic a clever caricature of Mrs. Brown's frowsy head, a few dried flowers, and a pencil-sketch or two. She gathered them together, meaning to make a packet of them to put into Tom's hands before he left the house. Then she began to read over the notes, simple things that said little, and from another would have had no especial meaning or value. Here he asked her if he might drive her to a picnic at Wilk's Run; this was to say that he was going to Boston, and would be glad to execute any commissions for her,--trifling things, but written by his hand. She turned over his gifts, keepsakes which any friend might give to another. She recalled, while making up her packet, the circumstances in which each came to her. Memories exhale from mementos as odors from faded roses laid long away among our treasures. Patty ended by a brief shower of tears, and by replacing the souvenirs in the box whence they came. Her tears cleared her mental atmosphere as a thunder-shower may the air of a sultry day. Ten minutes later she flashed down stairs, bright, trenchant, and gay as a dragon-fly. She comforted herself with the illogical conclusion, "After all, I love him so deeply, he must love me." Meanwhile the lawyer had questioned Flossy. She described so bewilderingly the situation of "this pew, you know," that it was quite impossible to form the slightest idea of its position. He therefore concluded to take the young lady herself to Samoset; and, just as Patty descended from her chamber, the two drove away. The psalmody was found without trouble; and the printed slip in the binding was eventually traced to the newspaper from which it was cut, furnishing the link which had before been missing in the evidence needed to secure the long-talked-of pension. CHAPTER XXIV. MRS. SANFORD SPEAKS. "There's nobody else," said Will Sanford; "and if Tom Putnam won't take the part, the 'Faithful Jewess' may go to the 'demnition bowwows' but her sorrows will never afflict a Montfield audience." "Nobody would be more heartily rejoiced, I'm sure, than I should," his sister answered, "if she would take a journey in that direction: only there isn't time to learn another play. So you'll have to ask him." "Why don't you ask him yourself?" Will said. "It's your place." "I'll never ask him to do any thing. He's too stubborn to live, and he treats me abominably." "Then, you should heap coals of fire on his head by inviting him to take this part, that nobody but Sol Shankland would have anyway." "When I heap coals of fire," she returned vigorously, "I want them to burn: I want at least to be able to smell the scorched hair."