"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. It's that. My soul! how things come back! Talk about spirits! There's no need of 'em! _Things_ are full bad enough!" Isabel lifted out a small brown paper package, labeled in a cramped handwriting. She held it to the fading light. "'Slippery elm left by my dear father from his last illness,'" she read, with difficulty. "'The broken piece used by him on the day of his death.'" "My land!" exclaimed aunt Luceba weakly. "Now what'd she want to keep that for? He had it round all that winter, an' he used to give us a little mite, to please us. Oh, dear! it smells like death. Well, le's lay it aside an' git on. The light's goin', an' I must jog along. Take out that dress. I guess I know what 't is, though I can't hardly believe it." Isabel took out a black dress, made with a full, gathered skirt and an old-fashioned waist. "'Dress made ready for aunt Mercy,'" she read, "'before my dear uncle bought her a robe.' But, auntie," she added, "there's no back breadth!" "I know it! I know it! She was so large they had to cut it out, for fear 't wouldn't go into the coffin; an' Monroe Giles said she was a real particular woman, an' he wondered how she'd feel to have the back breadth of her quilted petticoat showin' in heaven. I declare I'm 'most sick! What's in that pasteboard box?" It was a shriveled object, black with long-dried mould. "'Lemon held by Timothy Marden in his hand just before he died.' Aunt Luceba," said Isabel, turning with a swift impulse, "I think aunt Eliza was a horror!"