Then Aunt Peggy hurried out to tell Hannah, the maid servant, to have some tea, and hot biscuits, and quince preserves, and pound cakes served before the guests left, and Hannah with a shawl over her head, went out and backed the old lady's horse into the barn, and Mrs. Joe Peabody and her grandson entered.

Mrs. Joe Peabody was a very pretty old lady when she was unwrapped from her black cloak and two shawls and fitch tippet and pumpkin hood, and seated in the big chair by the fire. Her white hair hung on either side of her face in rows of beautiful curls, and her eyes were blue as turquoises. Her grandson stood by her side, and she had a loving arm around him. "You remember my grandson Joe, don't you, dear?" she said to Let.i.tia. "Two years ago you used to go coasting together."

"Yes'm," said Let.i.tia. She and Joe glanced at each other, and their eyes were very big, and their cheeks very red.

Later on when the tea and biscuits and preserves and pound cake were served, Joe and Let.i.tia got a chance for a word. "You got back alright through the little green door," whispered Joe.

Let.i.tia nodded.

"And I came right through that book into grandma's garret," whispered Joe, "and I told grandma all about it, and she only laughed and hugged me and said some laws were made to be broken for the good of the breakers. But I am glad to be back here, aren't you?"

"Oh," gasped Let.i.tia fervently, and she took a bite of pound cake.

"This would have been corn meal mush there," said she.

"And I should have got another whipping after I got out of the book like the one I had before I got in," said Joe.

They both ate pound cake and looked happily at each other. "I think,"

said Joe presently, "that it would be better not to tell the other boys and girls about all this. Grandmother thinks so."

"Aunt Peggy does, too," said Let.i.tia. "They might think we made it all up, it is so queer. No, we will never tell anybody as long as we live."