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She was not sure that he had made his escape, and if he had his grandmother might punish him, and she considered that he had probably suffered enough at the hands of Goodman Cephas Holbrook.

Letitia’s aunt listened gravely. “You were disobedient,” said she when Letitia had finished, “but I think your disobediance has brought its own punishment, and I hope now that you will be more contented.”

“Oh, Aunt Peggy,” sobbed Letitia, “everything I’ve got is so beautiful, and I love to study and crochet and go to church.”

“Well, it was a hard lesson to learn, and I hoped to spare you from it, but perhaps it was for the best,” said her great-aunt Peggy.

“I was there a whole winter,” said Letitia, “but when I got back you were just coming home from church.”

“It doesn’t take as long to visit the past as it did to live in it,” replied her aunt. Then she sent Letitia to her room for the satin-wood box, and, when she had brought it, took out of it a little parcel, neatly folded in white paper, tied with a green ribbon. “Open it,” said she.

Letitia untied the green ribbon and unfolded the paper, and there was the little silver snuff-box which had been the treasure of the great-great-grandmother, Letitia Hopkins. She raised the lid, and there was also the little glass bottle.

They had a very nice dinner that day, and afterward had settled down for a quiet afternoon, Letitia feeling very happy, when there was a jingle of sleigh bells, and Aunt Peggy cried out. “Why, I declare,” said she, “if there isn’t Mrs. Joe Peabody with her little grandson driving over this cold day. She is a very smart old lady.”

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 Letitia. “Two years ago you used to go coasting together.”

“Yes’m,” said Letitia. 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 Letitia got a chance for a word. “You got back alright through the little green door,” whispered Joe.

Letitia 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 Letitia 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 Letitia. “They might think we made it all up, it is so queer. No, we will never tell anybody as long as we live.”