Going into her little study not long after, Aunt Zelie found them
there. Bess stood on a chair holding a vase which she had just filled
with white roses; Louise stood beside her with some others in her
hand.
"Oh, Auntie!" they both exclaimed, "we didn't want you to come till it
was all done."
"Shall I go away?" she asked, smiling.
"We'll tell you about it now, shan't we, Bess?" said Louise. "You
know," she continued, as her sister nodded approval, "we thought
perhaps Uncle Carl would be glad if we remembered him on Christmas,
and we couldn't think of anything but flowers."
Bess had placed the vase on a bracket beneath her uncle's portrait,
and now came down from the chair, adding anxiously, "You like it,
don't you, Aunt Zelie?"
"The vase wouldn't hold them all, so you must wear the rest," and
Louise put them into her hand.
Aunt Zelie silently kissed them both.
There was something about this kiss that for a moment clouded the
brightness of the day for Bess. "I wish people did not die," she
exclaimed with almost a sob, as they went downstairs.
"What makes you look so sober, I should like to know?" demanded Uncle
William, who, with Aunt Marcia, was the first of the guests to arrive.
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