The day was done. The crimson sunset glow still hung over the whole world, touching the brown, parched hills with a rainbow of colors and reflecting itself in the cloudbank massed high in the eastern sky. Tom, hurrying home through the fields from his last errands at the store, was whistling softly and enjoying the beauty of the early evening, wondering all the while why the little sister was not running to meet him, and half expecting to see her jump out at him from behind some clump of bushes. But Tabitha was nowhere in sight.

"Poor Puss! Wonder if she has been punished again today. Wish I could keep her with me all the time. She wouldn't get into so much mischief."

He anxiously scanned the house as he approached it for some glimpse of lively Tabitha, but was disappointed. Suddenly from overhead came a soft bird trill, followed by a suppressed snicker. He looked up quickly, and there in the branches of the wide-spreading sycamore tree by the corner of the house was a flutter of white which, upon closer inspection, proved to be Tabitha's nightgown, and Tabitha was inside it!

"Tab—"

"Sh!" came the instant command. "Eat supper and come up to my room. I've got something to show you."

Tom obediently followed her instructions, and some minutes later his head appeared at the window, and he demanded, "Puss, are you still working for that licking?"

"Nope," she answered serenely. "We don't have to talk in whispers now, for Dad has gone up the road and I heard him tell Aunt Maria he wouldn't be home until late."

"What does this mean? What are you doing out in that tree, and why are you in your nightgown? It's getting damp and you will catch cold sitting out there like that."

"I ain't undressed," came the scornful reply. "I poured a cup of coffee down Dad's collar and burned his neck—oh, I didn't do it on purpose, Thomas Catt! 'Twas really his fault, for he joggled my elbow just as I was reaching up to set it on the shelf to cool. Aunt Maria was going to make coffee cake for supper. But of course he blamed me, and he sent me up to bed again. Reckon he guessed that I didn't put on my nightgown yesterday, for he told me that I had to do it this time and to get into bed. He didn't say I had to undress, though, so I just put on my gown and crawled into bed for a second. That was all he really told me to do, now Tom. I can't stay in bed in the daytime, so I came out here to sit. I've got on all my clothes and my nightgown besides, so I won't catch cold on this hot night. Goodness! I should hope not. One time I had a sneezing spell and Aunt Maria made me sit for ages with mullein leaves dipped in hot vinegar stuck onto my feet. Said she was afraid maybe I was going to have a bad cold or a fever. We'd been running races and my face was red and hot."

Tom laughed, though the details of the episode were very fresh in his mind yet. He had escaped a similar fate only because he was so big that the fussy little aunt could no longer force him to take her vile doses. "Well, what is the wonder you have to show me? I confess I am curious. Have you found another history you didn't know belonged to us, or has one of that missing bunch turned up?"

"Yes, no; it's a Bible." There was a scraping among the branches and through the parted leaves Tom saw a huge volume hanging on a bough in some mysterious manner.

"Goodness gracious, Puss! How did you get that thing out there?"

"I did have quite a time of it," confessed the child, tugging at the heavy book to keep it from slipping out of her hands to the ground below, and at the same time trying to balance herself on the smooth bough. "I guess you will have to pull it in the window again. I have broken its back getting it out here."

"What will Dad say?"

"It was thrown out among the stuff we are going to leave here, so I guess he won't care. I'd like to take it, though, Tom, for it has the loveliest names in it. Just listen here,—'Theodora Marcella Folwell'—ain't that grand? And here's another, 'Gabrielle Flora Folwell'—" "What in the world are you reading?" asked the puzzled boy, craning his neck out of the window to see what sort of a Bible it could be with such names as these in it.

"Aunt Maria said it was an old Bible that we've carted around for years and it is such a nuisance to move that they don't mean to pack it this time at all. There are a lot of names in the back and some awfully homely pictures. I rubbed my finger on one and it smooched the nose clear off and blurred both eyes, but he wasn't good looking anyway. It isn't much worse now. On one page it says 'Births,' and on another 'Deaths,' and on the third 'Marriages.'"

"Oh!" Tom was suddenly enlightened. "Hold the book fast now and I'll come down where you are and get it. Don't fall."

His instructions were unnecessary. Tabitha's legs were curled around the big bough so tightly that it would have taken a cyclone to dislodge her, and the mammoth Bible hung suspended by its broken back from an adjacent branch in such a fashion that as long as its heavy binding held it could not fall. But it took considerable effort to haul it up into the house again, and this was finally accomplished only after Tabitha had crawled back through the window to tug at it from above, while Tom pushed at it from below, swaying and bumping in the sycamore until both children held their breath for fear boy and Bible would land in a heap on the ground.

"There!" breathed Tabitha with a sigh of relief when at last the volume lay safe on the wide window-sill. "Now you can see all the names yourself. I never heard such grand ones before. How do you pronounce A-m-a-r-i-a-h? And here's a perfectly beautiful one D-i-o-n-y-s-i-u-s Carpenter. It has him down under the marriages with Pen-e-lope Miranda Folwell. Don't you think that is pretty? They are all so different from John and Frank and—and—Thomas and Tabitha. I wish I could pick out a pretty name for my very own and have folks call me that always. Don't you?"

Tom was intently studying the records penned in faded ink on the yellow pages, and now he raised his head and looked into the eager black eyes upturned to his, as he said slowly, "Puss, this must be the family Bible that belonged to Mother's folks. I can remember Dad used to call her Dora, and I have an old letter I found in a book a long time ago that has the name Folwell on it. Yes, here's the record. See, Puss? 'Theodora Marcella Folwell and Lynne Maximilian Catt, married Sept. 10th, 18—,' it's blurred so I can't read the rest of it. But that must be Dad. His name is Maximilian, you know, though I never heard the Lynne part of it before."

"Lynne," repeated Tabitha, half to herself. "That might be a pretty name if it belonged to anyone but a Catt man. Lynne Catt—hm! Lean cat. That's what everybody would call him. I bet that's why he used his middle name. I'd rather be nicknamed 'Manx cat' than to be called 'lean cat,' wouldn't you? 'Skinny, scrawny Tabby Catt'—that's what they call me, Tom. My name might as well have been 'Lynne.'"

"Never mind, Puss. When we get moved to Silver Bow, people won't know about that rhyme."

"Maybe they will think up something worse yet. It was bad enough to have the children of Conroy sing, 'Once there was a little kitty,' and then the folks at Dover used to say, 'Pussy cat, Pussy cat, where have you been?' It gets worse every place we go."

Her lip quivered suspiciously, and Tom hastily changed the subject by asking, "What would you choose for a name if you could take your pick of all the pretty ones you ever heard?"

Tabitha drew a long breath, shook the black hair out of her eyes, folded her lean brown arms across the nightgown, which looked considerably the worse for her climb in the sycamore tree, and hesitated.

"A name could have more than one part, couldn't it?" she finally asked.

"I suppose so; most people have more than one."

"Well, it's rather hard to choose, for I have heard so many names, though never any as grand as these in the Bible. Even 'Rosalie' isn't so grand; do you think so? I—believe—I'd—like—to be called"—Tom waited expectantly as she shifted from foot to foot and tried to make the important decision.—"Theodora Marcella Gabrielle Julianna Victoria Emeline. Say, Tom, will you call me that? Just when we're alone, of course, so Dad wouldn't hear it."

Tom caught his breath as if a dash of cold water had suddenly struck his face. "Gracious, Puss! I never could remember all that. Say it again, can you?"

"Of course! That's easy, and so pretty. Theodora Marcella Gabrielle Julianna Victoria Emeline. Why, it sounds just like a princess, Tom! I believe I could be good and not get mad all the time if I had a name like that. I know I could. I wouldn't envy Rosalie Meywood one bit. Don't you think that is a perfectly grand name, Tom?"

Tom bit his lip to keep from laughing as he soberly answered, "Tip-top, Puss. I'll call you that sometimes—that is, as much of it as I can remember, if you want me to; just in play, you know. Won't Dora be enough?"

"Oh no! Why, that's hardly any of it. Dora is a pretty name, but Theodora is grand. If you forget part of it, remember the Theodora Gabrielle part. That is the best of it. Wouldn't you like to have me call you something else besides Tom? There are some awfully nice boys' names written in that Bible. Which did you think were the grandest?"

"Oh, I like Ulysses first rate. That was Gen. Grant's name, you know, and he was a trump. He made some regular splendid fights."

Tabitha was evidently disappointed at his selection, and he hastily asked, "What do you think is the best name for a boy?"

"The grandest name I think is Di—what did you call it? Dionysius? Wouldn't Dionysius Ulysses Humphrey Llewelyn be splendid? Or would you like some more? There are six parts to my name—"

"Oh, no," Tom interrupted hastily. "That is long enough for me. Men don't need as many names as girls, I reckon. You may have to remind me what my name is to be, for I am afraid I shall always be forgetting it. Suppose we shorten it to Ulysses. You cut yours down a little, you know."

"That was just so you could remember it, and as I have to do the remembering of your name anyway, I reckon I will call you the whole thing. It's a heap prettier than Thomas Catt."

"Well, all right, Puss; but don't think about it so much that you will call me that when Dad is around. He won't like it. I think I will keep this Bible, though. Don't tell. I can put it in the bottom of the old trunk where I keep my things and no one will ever know but you."

So he marched away with the precious volume under his arm, and Tabitha crawled happily into bed to dream of grand names and a happy future in the unknown home where they were going.

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