We would dearly have liked to get a peep into the letters, too. But Aunt Olivia would not allow that. They must be burned unread, she declared. She took the wedding dress and veil, the picture case, and the letters away with her. The rest of the things were put back into the chest, pending their ultimate distribution. Aunt Janet gave each of us boys a handkerchief. The Story Girl got the blue candlestick, and Felicity and Cecily each got a pink and gold vase. Even Sara Ray was made happy by the gift of a little china plate, with a loudly coloured picture of Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh in the middle of it. Moses wore a scarlet cloak, while Aaron disported himself in bright blue. Pharaoh was arrayed in yellow. The plate had a scalloped border with a wreath of green leaves around it. “I shall never use it to eat off,” said Sara rapturously. “I’ll put it up on the parlour mantelpiece.” “I don’t see much use in having a plate just for ornament,” said Felicity. “It’s nice to have something interesting to look at,” retorted Sara, who felt that the soul must have food as well as the body. “I’m going to get a candle for my candlestick, and use it every night to go to bed with,” said the Story Girl. “And I’ll never light it without thinking of poor Rachel Ward. But I DO wish she had been pretty.” “Well,” said Felicity, with a glance at the clock, “it’s all over, and it has been very interesting. But that clock has got to be put back to the right time some time through the day. I don’t want bedtime coming a whole half-hour before it ought to.” In the afternoon, when Aunt Janet was over at Uncle Roger’s, seeing him and Aunt Olivia off to town, the clock was righted. The Story Girl and Peter came over to stay all night with us, and we made taffy in the kitchen, which the grown-ups kindly gave over to us for that purpose. “Of course it was very interesting to see the old chest unpacked,” said the Story Girl as she stirred the contents of a saucepan vigorously. “But now that it is over I believe I am sorry that it is opened. It isn’t mysterious any longer. We know all about it now, and we can never imagine what things are in it any more.” “It’s better to know than to imagine,” said Felicity. “Oh, no, it isn’t,” said the Story Girl quickly. “When you know things you have to go by facts. But when you just dream about things there’s nothing to hold you down.” “You’re letting the taffy scorch, and THAT’S a fact you’d better go by,” said Felicity sniffing. “Haven’t you got a nose?” When we went to bed, that wonderful white enchantress, the moon, was making an elf-land of the snow-misted world outside. From where I lay I could see the sharp tops of the spruces against the silvery sky. The frost was abroad, and the winds were still and the land lay in glamour. Across the hall, the Story Girl was telling Felicity and Cecily the old, old tale of Argive Helen and “evil-hearted Paris.”