Page:Letters from an Oregon Ranch.djvu/112

 shuddering tenderness I lifted it to the mantel. “Tom, look at Christine’s gift,—for us both, she said.” He stood awhile before it, then turned away saying, “You can have it all!”

The burnt-wood figure was but a forerunner of worse to follow. Being a woman, Nell, you can understand the significance of the next thing unearthed,—a black knit shoulder-shawl with a purple border.

“Oh, Tom!” I cried, “for mercy’s sake, look at this!”

“Well, what about it?”

“What about it? Why, don't you know it’s the very first shaft from Old Age’s quiver? It means that my sear and yellow days have come; that

“Oh, nonsense!”

“Well, don’t I know, Tom? I’ve been giving things like this to old ladies all my life.”

“And now your chickens have come home to roost, and the iron has entered your own soul! Who sent it?”

“Your aunt Sarah, with this package for you,—and here’s a note in which she says: ‘You speak, Katharine, of living in a box-house. Now, I hardly know what that means, but it sounds cold and must be draughty; so I send you this little cape, hoping you may find in it agreeable warmth.’”