She smiled afterward at her fears. Tom selected an old bugle from the attic, and Peter a scabbard that had lost its sword. Mary chose a string of blue beads that Margaret sometimes wore, and Clarabella a pink sash that she found in a trunk. Patty, before telling her choice, asked timidly what would happen if it was "too big ter be tooked in yer hands." Upon being assured that it would be sent, if it could not be carried, she unhesitatingly chose the biggest easy-chair the house afforded, with the announcement that it was "a Christmas present fur Mis' Whalen." For a moment Mrs. Kendall had felt tempted to remonstrate, and to ask Patty if she realized just how a green satin-damask Turkish chair would look in Mrs. Whalen's basement kitchen; but after one glance at Patty's radiant face, she had changed her mind, and had merely said: "Very well, dear. It shall be sent the day you go." Arabella only, of all the six, delayed her choice until the final minute. Even on that last morning she was hesitating between a marble statuette and a harmonica. In the end she took neither, for she had spied a huge chocolate-frosted cake that the cook had just made; and it was that cake which finally went to the station carefully packed in a pasteboard box and triumphantly borne in Arabella's arms. Mrs. Kendall herself went to New York with the children, taking Margaret with her. In the Grand Central Station she shuddered a little as she passed a certain seat. Involuntarily she reached for her daughter's hand. "And was it here that I stayed and stayed that day long ago when you got hurt and didn't come?" asked Margaret. "Yes, dear--right here." "Seems 'most as if I remembered," murmured the little girl, her eyes fixed on one of the great doors across the room. "I stayed and stayed, and you never came at all. And by and by I went out there to look for you, and I walked and walked and walked. And I was so tired and hungry!" "Yes, yes, dear, I know," faltered Mrs. Kendall, tightening her clasp on the small fingers. "But we won't think of all that now, dear. It is past and gone. Come, we're going to take Patty and the others home, you know, then to-morrow we are going to see if we can't find a new home for them." "Divvy up!" cried Margaret, brightening. "We're goin' to divvy up!" "Yes, dear." "Oh!" breathed Margaret, ecstatically. "I like to divvy up!" And the mother smiled content, for the last trace of gloomy brooding had fled from her daughter's face, and left it glowing with the joy of a care-free child. Not two hours later a certain alley in the great city was thrown into wild confusion. Out of every window leaned disheveled heads, and in every doorway stood a peering, questioning throng. Down by the Whalens' basement door, the crowd was almost impassable; and every inch of space in the windows opposite was filled with gesticulating men, women, and children.