It was always enchanting to watch Ole-Granny-Aggie weave, but to be allowed to sit at the loom and slide the shuttle through with my own hands was a special rapture. Yet this day I did not enjoy it, for I felt that something unusual had happened and associated it with my little friend.
The next morning mammy got out my new silk reins and hitched up Mary Frances and Arabella, my "match of blacks," for me to drive, and as we returned after a long race I saw an old gentleman with bent back carrying a beautiful white box into the house.
"Oh, how pretty! What is it for?" I asked my grandmother.
"A little jewel casket, my darling, to hold a keepsake that I am going to send to the angels. There, there; run along now and play."
I went into the garden where our own little bed of white violets was in full bloom, and suddenly remembering with a pang that my little Sara had wanted to gather them all and that I would let her have only what I saw fit she should have, I said, "She shall have every one now," and gathering my apron almost full I ran into the house.
The door of the room which had been closed to me for two days had been accidentally left ajar and, hearing my grandmother's voice, I ran in.
She and poor Miss Sophia and "Miss Mary" and several of the neighbors and servants were standing around that little white casket resting on a table in the center of the room.
"Is the keepsake in it?" I asked.
My grandmother lifted me up and there, sweetly sleeping, was my little Sara Elizabeth. I whispered my wish to put the violets into her lap so that she could see them the first thing when she awakened and know that I was sorry and had brought her both our shares. My grandmother held me while I gently, and with no word, lest I should awaken her, put my violets into her arms so as to "s'prise her when she waked." Then I whispered to my grandmother as she carried me away, "Do angels want little children for keepsakes?"