The Mortuary Chest

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Title:     The Mortuary Chest
Author: Alice Brown [More Titles by Brown]

"Now we've got red o' the men-folks," said Mrs. Robbins, "le's se' down an' talk it over." The last man of all the crowd accustomed to seek the country store at noontime was closing the church door behind him as she spoke. "Here, Ezry," she called after him, "you hurry up, or you won't git there afore cockcrow to-morrer, an' I wouldn't have that letter miss for a good deal."

Mrs. Robbins was slight, and hung on wires,--so said her neighbors. They also remarked that her nose was as picked as a pin, and that anybody with them freckles and that red hair was sure to be smart. You could always tell. Mrs. Robbins knew her reputation for extreme acuteness, and tried to live up to it.

"Law! don't you go to stirrin' on him up," said Mrs. Solomon Page comfortably, putting on the cover of her butter-box, which had contained the family lunch. "If the store's closed, he can slip the letter into the box, an' three cents with it, an' they'll put a stamp on in the mornin'."

By this time, there was a general dusting of crumbs from Sunday gowns, a settling of boxes and baskets, and the feminine portion of the East Tiverton congregation, according to ancient custom, passed into the pews nearest the stove, and arranged itself more compactly for the midday gossip. This was a pleasant interlude in the religious decorum of the day; no Sunday came when the men did not trail off to the store for their special council, and the women, with a restful sense of sympathy alloyed by no disturbing element, settled down for an exclusively feminine view of the universe. Mrs. Page took the head of the pew, and disposed her portly frame so as to survey the scene with ease. She was a large woman, with red cheeks and black, shining hair. One powerful arm lay along the back of the pew, and, as she talked, she meditatively beat the rail in time. Her sister, Mrs. Ellison, according to an intermittent custom, had come over from Saltash to attend church, and incidentally to indulge in a family chat. It was said that Tilly rode over about jes' so often to get the Tiverton news for her son Leonard, who furnished local items to the Sudleigh "Star;" and, indeed, she made no secret of sitting down in social conclave with a bit of paper and a worn pencil in hand, to jog her memory. She, too, had smooth black hair, but her dark eyes were illumined by no steadfast glow; they snapped and shone with alert intelligence, and her great forehead dominated the rest of her face, scarred with a thousand wrinkles by intensity of nature rather than by time. A pleasant warmth had diffused itself over the room, so cold during the morning service that foot-stoves had been in requisition. Bonnet strings were thrown back and shawls unpinned. The little world relaxed and lay at ease.

"What's the news over your way, sister?" asked Mrs. Ellison, as an informal preliminary.

"Tilly don't want to give; she'd ruther take," said Mrs. Baxter, before the other could answer. "She's like old Mis' Pepper. Seliny Hazlitt went over there, when she was fust married an' come to the neighborhood an' asked her if she'd got a sieve to put squash through. Poor Seliny! she didn't know a sieve from a colander, in them days."

"I guess she found out soon enough," volunteered Mrs. Page. "_He_ was one o' them kind o' men that can keep house as well as a woman. I'd ruther live with a born fool."

"Well, old Mis' Pepper she ris up an' smoothed down her apron (recollect them little dots she used to wear?--made her look as broad as a barn door!), an' she says, 'Yes, we've got a sieve for flour, an' a sieve for meal, an' a sieve for rye, an' a sieve for blue-monge, an' we could have a sieve for squash if we was a mind to, _but I don't wish to lend_.' That's the way with Tilly. She's terrible cropein' about news, but she won't lend."

"How's your cistern?" asked Mrs. John Cole, who, with an exclusively practical turn of mind, saw no reason why talk should be consecutive. "Got all the water you want?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Page; "that last rain filled it up higher'n it's been sence November."

But Mrs. Ellison was not to be thrown off the track.

"Ain't there been consid'able talk over here about Parson Bond?" she asked.

Miss Sally Ware, a plump and pleasing maiden lady, whose gold beads lay in a crease especially designed for them, stirred uneasily in her seat and gave her sisters an appealing glance. But she did not speak, beyond uttering a little dissentient noise in her throat. She was loyal to her minister. An embarrassed silence fell like a vapor over the assemblage. Everybody longed to talk; nobody wanted the responsibility of beginning. Mrs. Page was the first to gather her forces.

"Now, Tilly," said she, with decision, "you ain't comin' over here to tole us into haulin' our own pastor over the coals, unless you'll say right out you won't pass it on to Saltash folks. As for puttin' it in the paper, it ain't the kind you can."

Tilly's eyes burned.

"I guess I know when to speak an' when not to," she remarked. "Now don't beat about the bush; the men-folks'll be back to rights. I never in my life give Len a mite o' news he couldn't ha' picked up for himself."

"Well, some master silly pieces have got into the paper, fust an' last," said Mrs. Robbins. "Recollect how your Len come 'way over here to git his shoes cobbled, the week arter Tom Brewer moved int' the Holler, an' folks hadn't got over swappin' the queer things he said? an' when Tom got the shoes done afore he promised, Len says to him, 'You're better'n your word.' 'Well,' says Tom, 'I flew at 'em with all the venom o' my specie.' An' it wa'n't a fortnight afore that speech come out in a New York paper, an' then the Sudleigh 'Star' got hold on 't, an' so 't went. If folks want that kind o' thing, they can git a plenty, _I_ say." She set her lips defiantly, and looked round on the assembled group. This was something she had meant to mention; now she had done it.

The informal meeting was aghast. A flavor of robust humor was accustomed to enliven it, but not of a sort to induce dissension.

"There! there!" murmured Sally Ware. "It's the Sabbath day!"

"Well, nobody's breakin' of it, as I know of," said Mrs. Ellison. Her eyes were brighter than usual, but she composed herself into a careful disregard of annoyance. When desire of news assailed her, she could easily conceal her personal resentments, cannily sacrificing small issues to great. "I guess there's no danger o' Parson Bond's gittin' into the paper, so long 's he behaves himself; but if anybody's got eyes, they can't help seein'. I hadn't been in the Bible class five minutes afore I guessed how he was carryin' on. Has he begun to go with Isabel North, an' his wife not cold in her grave?"

"Well, I think, for my part, he does want Isabel," said Mrs. Robbins sharply, "an' I say it's a sin an' a shame. Why, she ain't twenty, an' he's sixty if he's a day. My soul! Sally Ware, you better be settin' your cap for my William Henry. He's 'most nineteen."

Miss Ware flushed, and her plump hands tightened upon each other under her shawl. She was never entirely at ease in the atmosphere of these assured married women; it was always a little bracing.

"Well, how's she take it?" asked Tilly, turning from one to the other. "Tickled to death, I s'pose?"

"Well, I guess she ain't!" broke in a younger woman, whose wedding finery was not yet outworn. "She's most sick over it, and so she has been ever since her sister married and went away. I believe she'd hate the sight of him, if 't wasn't the minister; but _'tis_ the minister, and when she's put face to face with him, she can't help saying yes and no."

"I dunno'," said Mrs. Page, with her unctuous laugh. "Remember the party over to Tiverton t'other night, an' them tarts? You see, Rosanna Maria Pike asked us all over; an' you know how flaky her pie-crust is. Well, the minister was stan'in' side of Isabel when the tarts was passed. He was sort o' shinin' up to her that night, an' I guess he felt a mite twittery; so when the tarts come to him, he reached out kind o' delicate, with his little finger straight out, an' tried to take one. An' a ring o' crust come off on his finger. Then he tried it ag'in, an' got another ring. Everybody'd ha' laughed, if it hadn't been the minister; but Isabel she tickled right out, an' says, 'You don't take jelly, do you, Mr. Bond?' An' he turned as red as fire, an' says, 'No, I thank you.'"

"She wouldn't ha' said it, if she hadn't ha' been so nervous," remarked Miss Sally, taking a little parcel of peppermints from her pocket, and proceeding to divide them.

"No, I don't s'pose she would," owned Mrs. Page reflectively. "But if what they say is true, she's been pretty sassy to him, fust an' last. Why, you know, no matter how the parson begins his prayer, he's sure to end up on one line: 'Lord, we thank Thee we have not been left to live by the dim light of natur'.' 'Lisha Cole, when he come home from Illinois, walked over here to meetin', to surprise some o' the folks. He waited in the entry to ketch 'em comin' out, an' the fust word he heard was, 'Lord, we thank Thee we have not been left to live by the dim light of natur'.' 'Lisha said he'd had time to be shipwrecked (you know he went to California fust an' made the v'yage), an' be married twice, an' lay by enough to keep him, and come home poor; but when he heard that, he felt as if the world hadn't moved sence he started."

Sally Ware dropped her mitten, to avoid listening and the necessity of reply; it was too evident that the conversational tone was becoming profane. But Mrs. Page's eyes were gleaming with pure dramatic joy, and she continued:--

"Well, a fortnight or so ago he went over to see Isabel, an' Sadie an' her husband happened to be there. They were all settin' purrin' in the dark, because they'd forgot to send for any kerosene. 'No light?' says he, hittin' his head ag'inst the chimbly-piece goin' in,--'no light?' 'No,' says Isabel, 'none but the dim light of natur'.'"

There was a chime of delighted laughter in many keys. The company felt the ease of unrestricted speech. They wished the nooning might be indefinitely prolonged.

"Sometimes I think she sets out to make him believe she's wuss 'n she is," remarked Mrs. Cole. "Remember how she carried on, last Sabbath?"

"I guess so!" returned Mrs. Page. "You see, Tilly, he's kind o' pushin' her for'ard to make her seem more suitable,--he'd like to have her as old as the hills!--an' nothin' would do but she must go into the Bible class. Ain't a member that's under fifty, but there that little young thing sets, cheeks red as a beet, an' the elder asks her questions, when he gits to her, as if he was coverin' on her over with cotton wool. Well, last Sabbath old Deacon Pitts--le's see, there ain't any o' his folks present, be they?--well, he was late, an' he hadn't looked at his lesson besides. 'T was the fust chapter in Ruth, where it begins, 'In the days when the judges ruled.' You recollect Naomi told the two darters they'd got to set sail, an' then the Bible says, 'they lifted up their voice an' wept.' 'Who wept?' says the parson to Deacon Pitts, afore he'd got fairly se'down. The deacon he opened his Bible, an' whirled over the leaves. 'Who wept, Brother Pitts?' says the parson over ag'in. Somebody found the deacon the place, an' p'inted. He was growin' redder an' redder, an' his spe'tacles kep' slippin' down, but he did manage to see; the chapter begun suthin' about the judges. Well, by that time parson spoke out sort o' sharp. 'Brother Pitts,' says he, 'who wept?' The deacon see't he'd got to put some kind of a face on't, an' he looked up an' spoke out, as bold as brass. 'I conclude,' says he,--'I conclude 't was the judges!'"

Even Miss Ware smiled a little, and adjusted her gold beads. The others laughed out rich and free.

"Well, what'd that have to do with Isabel?" asked Mrs. Ellison, who never forgot the main issue.

"Why, everybody else drawed down their faces, an' tried to keep 'em straight, but Isabel, she begun to laugh, an' she laughed till the tears streamed down her cheeks. Deacon Pitts was real put out, for him, an' the parson tried not to take no notice. But it went so fur he couldn't help it, an' so he says, 'Miss Isabel, I'm real pained,' says he. But 'twas jest as you'd cuff the kitten for snarlin' up your yarn."

"Well, what's Isabel goin' to do?" asked Mrs. Ellison. "S'pose she'll marry him?"

"Why, she won't unless he tells her to. If he does, I dunno but she'll think she's got to."

"I say it's a shame," put in Mrs. Robbins incisively; "an' Isabel with everything all fixed complete so 't she could have a good time. Her sister's well married, an' Isabel stays every night with her. Them two girls have been together ever sence their father died. An' here she's got the school, an' she's goin' to Sudleigh every Saturday to take lessons in readin', an' she'd be as happy as a cricket, if on'y he'd let her alone."

"She reads real well," said Mrs. Ellison. "She come over to our sociable an' read for us. She could turn herself into anybody she'd a mind to. Len wrote a notice of it for the 'Star.' That's the only time we've had oysters over our way."

"I'd let it be the last," piped up a thin old lady, with a long figured veil over her face. "It's my opinion oysters lead to dancin'."

"Well, let 'em lead," said optimistic Mrs. Page. "I guess we needn't foller."

"Them that have got rheumatism in their knees can stay behind," said the young married woman, drawn by the heat of the moment into a daring at once to be repented. "Mrs. Ellison, you're getting ahead of us over in your parish. They say you sing out of sheet music."

"Yes, they do say so," interrupted the old lady under the figured veil. "If there's any worship in sheet music, I'd like to know it!"

"Come, come!" said peace-loving Mrs. Page; "there's the men filin' in. We mustn't let 'em see us squabblin'. They think we're a lot o' cacklin' hens anyway, tickled to death over a piece o' chalk. There's Isabel, now. She's goin' to look like her aunt Mary Ellen, over to Saltash."

Isabel preceded the men, who were pausing for a word at the door, and went down the aisle to her pew. She bowed to one and another, in passing, and her color rose. They could not altogether restrain their guiltily curious gaze, and Isabel knew she had been talked over. She was a healthy-looking girl, with clear blue eyes and a quantity of soft brown hair. Her face was rather large-featured, and one could see that, if the world went well with her, she would be among those who develop beauty in middle life.

The group of dames dispensed to their several pews, and settled their faces into expressions more becoming a Sunday mood. The village folk, who had time for a hot dinner, dropped in, one by one, and by and by the parson came,--a gaunt man, with thick red-brown hair streaked with dull gray, and red-brown, sanguine eyes. He was much beloved; but something impulsive and unevenly balanced in his nature led even his people to regard him with more or less patronage. He kept his eyes rigorously averted from Isabel's pew, in passing; but when he reached the pulpit, and began unpinning his heavy gray shawl, he did glance at her, and his face grew warm. But Isabel did not look at him, and all through the service she sat with a haughty pose of the head, gazing down into her lap. When it was over, she waited for no one, since her sister was not at church, but sped away down the snowy road.

The next day, Isabel stayed after school, and so it was in the wintry twilight that she walked home, guarded by the few among her flock who had been kept to learn the inner significance of common fractions. Approaching her own house, she quickened her steps, for there before the gate (taken from its hinges and resting for the winter) stood a blue pung. The horse was dozing, his Roman nose sunken almost to the snow at his feet. He looked as if he had come to stay. Isabel withdrew her hand from the persistent little fingers clinging to it.

"Good-night, children," said she. "I guess I've got company. I must hurry in. Come bright and early to-morrow."

The little group marched away, swathed in comforters, each child carrying the dinner-pail with an easy swing. Their reddened faces lighted over the chorusing good-nights, and they kept looking back, while Isabel ran up the icy path to her own door. It was opened from within, before she reached it, and a tall, florid woman, with smoothly banded hair, stood there to receive her. Though she had a powerful frame, she gave one at the outset an impression of weak gentleness, and the hands she extended, albeit cordial, were somewhat limp. She wore her bonnet still, though she had untied the strings and thrown them back; and her ample figure was tightly laced under a sontag.

"Why, aunt Luceba!" cried Isabel, radiant. "I'm as glad as I can be. When did you rain down?"

"Be you glad?" returned aunt Luceba, her somewhat anxious look relaxing into a smile. "Well, I'm pleased if you be. Fact is, I run away, an' I'm jest comin' to myself, an' wonderin' what under the sun set me out to do it."

"Run away!" repeated Isabel, drawing her in, and at once peeping into the stove. "Oh, you fixed the fire, didn't you? It keeps real well. I put on coal in the morning, and then again at night."

"Isabel," began her aunt, standing by the stove, and drumming on it with agitated fingers, "I hate to have you live as you do. Why under the sun can't you come over to Saltash, an' stay with us?"

Isabel had thrown off her shawl and hat, and was standing on the other side of the stove; she was tingling with cold and youthful spirits.

"I'm keeping school," said she. "School can't keep without me. And I'm going over to Sudleigh, every Saturday, to take elocution lessons. I'm having my own way, and I'm happy as a clam. Now, why can't you come and live with me? You said you would, the very day aunt Eliza died."

"I know I did," owned the visitor, lowering her voice, and casting a glance over her shoulder. "But I never had an idea then how Mary Ellen 'd feel about it. She said she wouldn't live in this town, not if she was switched. I dunno why she's so ag'in' it, but she seems to be, an' there 't is!"

"Why, aunt Luceba!" Isabel had left her position to draw forward a chair. "What's that?" She pointed to the foot of the lounge, where, half hidden in shadow, stood a large, old-fashioned blue chest.

"'Sh! that's it! that's what I come for. It's her chist."

"Whose?"

"Your aunt 'Liza's." She looked Isabel in the face with an absurd triumph and awe. She had done a brave deed, the nature of which was not at once apparent.

"What's in it?" asked Isabel, walking over to it.

"Don't you touch it!" cried her aunt, in agitation. "I wouldn't have you meddle with it--But there! it's locked. I al'ays forgit that. I feel as if the things could git out an' walk. Here! you let it alone, an' byme-by we'll open it. Se' down here on the lounge. There, now! I guess I can tell ye. It was sister 'Liza's chist, an' she kep' it up attic. She begun it when we wa'n't more 'n girls goin' to Number Six, an' she's been fillin' on't ever sence."

"Begun it! You talk as if 't was a quilt!" Isabel began to laugh.

"Now don't!" said her aunt, in great distress. "Don't ye! I s'pose 't was because we was such little girls an' all when 'Liza started it, but it makes me as nervous as a witch, an' al'ays did. You see, 'Liza was a great hand for deaths an' buryin's; an' 'as for funerals, she'd ruther go to 'em than eat. I'd say that if she was here this minute, for more 'n once I said it to her face. Well, everybody 't died, she saved suthin' they wore or handled the last thing, an' laid it away in this chist; an' last time I see it opened, 'twas full, an' she kind o' smacked her lips, an' said she should have to begin another. But the very next week she was took away."

"Aunt Luceba," said Isabel suddenly, "was aunt Eliza hard to live with? Did you and aunt Mary Ellen have to toe the mark?"

"Don't you say one word," answered her aunt hastily. "That's all past an' gone. There ain't no way of settlin' old scores but buryin' of 'em. She was older 'n we were, an' on'y a step-sister, arter all. We must think o' that. Well, I must come to the end o' my story, an' then we'll open the chist. Next day arter we laid her away, it come into my head, 'Now we can burn up them things.' It may ha' been wicked, but there 't was, an' the thought kep' arter me, till all I could think of was the chist; an' byme-by I says to Mary Ellen, one mornin', 'Le's open it to-day an' make a burnfire!' An' Mary Ellen she turned as white as a sheet, an' dropped her spoon into her sasser, an' she says: 'Not yet! Luceba, don't you ask me to touch it yet.' An' I found out, though she never'd say another word, that it unset her more'n it did me. One day, I come on her up attic stan'in' over it with the key in her hand, an' she turned round as if I'd ketched her stealin', an' slipped off downstairs. An' this arternoon, she went into Tilly Ellison's with her work, an' it come to me all of a sudden how I'd git Tim Yatter to harness an' load the chist onto the pung, an' I'd bring it over here, an' we'd look it over together; an' then, if there's nothin' in it but what I think, I'd leave it behind, an' maybe you or Sadie'd burn it. John Cole happened to ride by, and he helped me in with it. I ain't a-goin' to have Mary Ellen worried. She's different from me. She went to school, same's you have, an' she's different somehow. She's been meddled with all her life, an' I'll be whipped if she sha'n't make a new start. Should you jest as lieves ask Sadie or John?"

"Why, yes," said Isabel wonderingly; "or do it myself. I don't see why you care."

Aunt Luceba wiped her beaded face with a large handkerchief.

"I dunno either," she owned, in an exhausted voice. "I guess it's al'ays little things you can't stand. Big ones you can butt ag'inst. There! I feel better, now I've told ye. Here's the key. Should you jest as soon open it?"

Isabel drew the chest forward with a vigorous pull of her sturdy arm. She knelt before it and inserted the key. Aunt Luceba rose and leaned over her shoulder, gazing with the fascination of horror. At the moment the lid was lifted, a curious odor filled the room.

"My soul!" exclaimed Aunt Luceba. "O my soul!" She seemed incapable of saying more; and Isabel, awed in spite of herself, asked, in a whisper:--

"What's that smell? I know, but I can't think."

"You take out that parcel," said aunt Luceba, beginning to fan herself with her handkerchief. "That little one down there't the end. It's that. My soul! how things come back! Talk about spirits! There's no need of 'em! _Things_ are full bad enough!"

Isabel lifted out a small brown paper package, labeled in a cramped handwriting. She held it to the fading light. "'Slippery elm left by my dear father from his last illness,'" she read, with difficulty. "'The broken piece used by him on the day of his death.'"

"My land!" exclaimed aunt Luceba weakly. "Now what'd she want to keep that for? He had it round all that winter, an' he used to give us a little mite, to please us. Oh, dear! it smells like death. Well, le's lay it aside an' git on. The light's goin', an' I must jog along. Take out that dress. I guess I know what 't is, though I can't hardly believe it."

Isabel took out a black dress, made with a full, gathered skirt and an old-fashioned waist. "'Dress made ready for aunt Mercy,'" she read, "'before my dear uncle bought her a robe.' But, auntie," she added, "there's no back breadth!"

"I know it! I know it! She was so large they had to cut it out, for fear 't wouldn't go into the coffin; an' Monroe Giles said she was a real particular woman, an' he wondered how she'd feel to have the back breadth of her quilted petticoat showin' in heaven. I declare I'm 'most sick! What's in that pasteboard box?"

It was a shriveled object, black with long-dried mould.

"'Lemon held by Timothy Marden in his hand just before he died.' Aunt Luceba," said Isabel, turning with a swift impulse, "I think aunt Eliza was a horror!"

"Don't you say it, if you do think it," said her aunt, sinking into a chair and rocking vigorously. "Le's git through with it as quick 's we can. Ain't that a bandbox? Yes, that's great-aunt Isabel's leghorn bunnit. You was named for her, you know. An' there's cousin Hattie's cashmere shawl, an' Obed's spe'tacles. An' if there ain't old Mis' Eaton's false front! Don't you read no more. I don't care what they're marked. Move that box a mite. My soul! There's ma'am's checked apron I bought her to the fair! Them are all her things down below." She got up and walked to the window, looking into the chestnut branches, with unseeing eyes. She turned about presently, and her cheeks were wet. "There!" she said; "I guess we needn't look no more. Should you jest as soon burn 'em?"

"Yes," answered Isabel. She was crying a little, too. "Of course I will, auntie. I'll put 'em back now. But when you're gone, I'll do it; perhaps not till Saturday, but I will then."

She folded the articles, and softly laid them away. They were no longer gruesome, since even a few of them could recall the beloved and still remembered dead. As she was gently closing the lid, she felt a hand on her shoulder. Aunt Luceba was standing there, trembling a little, though the tears had gone from her face.

"Isabel," said she, in a whisper, "you needn't burn the apron, when you do the rest. Save it careful. I should like to put it away among my things."

Isabel nodded. She remembered her grandmother, a placid, hopeful woman, whose every deed breathed the fragrance of godly living.

"There!" said her aunt, turning away with the air of one who thrusts back the too insistent past, lest it dominate her quite. "It's gittin' along towards dark, an I must put for home. I guess that hoss thinks he's goin' to be froze to the ground. You wrop up my soap-stone while I git on my shawl. Land! don't it smell hot? I wisht I hadn't been so spry about puttin' on't into the oven." She hurried on her things; and Isabel, her hair blowing about her face, went out to uncover the horse and speed the departure. The reins in her hands, aunt Luceba bent forward once more to add, "Isabel, if there's one thing left for me to say, to tole you over to live with us, I want to say it."

Isabel laughed. "I know it," she answered brightly. "And if there's anything I can say to make you and aunt Mary Ellen come over here"--

Aunt Luceba shook her head ponderously, and clucked at the horse. "Fur's I'm concerned, it's settled now. I'd come, an' be glad. But there's Mary Ellen! Go 'long!" She went jangling away along the country road to the music of old-fashioned bells.

Isabel ran into the house, and, with one look at the chest, set about preparing her supper. She was enjoying her life of perfect freedom with a kind of bravado, inasmuch as it seemed an innocent delight of which nobody approved. If the two aunts would come to live with her, so much, the better; but since they refused, she scorned the descent to any domestic expedient. Indeed, she would have been glad to sleep, as well as to eat, in the lonely house; but to that her sister would never consent, and though she had compromised by going to Sadie's for the night, she always returned before breakfast. She put up a leaf of the table standing by the wall, and arranged her simple supper there, uttering aloud as she did so fragments of her lesson, or dramatic sentences which had caught her fancy in reading or in speech. Finally, as she was dipping her cream toast, she caught herself saying, over and over, "My soul!" in the tremulous tone her aunt had used at that moment of warm emotion. She could not make it quite her own, and she tried again and again, like a faithful parrot. Then of a sudden the human power and pity of it flashed upon her, and she reddened, conscience-smitten, though no one was by to hear. She set her dish upon the table with indignant emphasis.

"I'm ashamed of myself!" said Isabel, and she sat down to her delicate repast, and forced herself, while she ate with a cordial relish, to fix her mind on what seemed to her things common as compared with her beloved ambition. Isabel often felt that she was too much absorbed in reading, and that, somehow or other, God would come to that conclusion also, and take away her wicked facility.

The dark seemed to drift quickly down, that night, because her supper had been delayed, and she washed her dishes by lamplight. When she had quite finished, and taken off her apron, she stood a moment over the chest, before sitting down to her task of memorizing verse. She was wondering whether she might not burn a few of the smaller things to-night; yet somehow, although she was quite free from aunt Luceba's awe of them, she did feel that the act must be undertaken with a certain degree of solemnity. It ought not to be accomplished over the remnants of a fire built for cooking; it should, moreover, be to the accompaniment of a serious mood in herself. She turned away, but at that instant there came a jingle of bells. It stopped at the gate. Isabel went into the dark entry, and pressed her face against the side-light. It was the parson. She knew him at once; no one in Tiverton could ever mistake that stooping figure, draped in a shawl. Isabel always hated him the more when she thought of his shawl. It flashed upon her then, as it often did when revulsion came over her, how much she had loved him until he had conceived this altogether horrible attachment for her. It was like a cherished friend who had begun to cut undignified capers. More than that, there lurked a certain cruelty in it, because he seemed to be trading on her inherited reverence for his office. If he should ask her to marry him, he was the minister, and how could she refuse? Unless, indeed, there were somebody else in the room, to give her courage, and that was hardly to be expected. Isabel began casting wildly about her for help. Her thoughts ran in a rushing current, and even in the midst of her tragic despair some sense of the foolishness of it smote her like a comic note, and she could have laughed hysterically.

"But I can't help it," she said aloud, "I am afraid. I can't put out the light. He's seen it. I can't slip out the back door. He'd hear me on the crust. He'll--ask me--to-night! Oh, he will! he will! and I said to myself I'd be cunning and never give him a chance. Oh, why couldn't aunt Luceba have stayed? My soul! my soul!" And then the dramatic fibre, always awake in her, told her that she had found the tone she sought.

He was blanketing his horse, and Isabel had flown into the sitting-room. Her face was alive with resolution and a kind of joy. She had thought. She threw open the chest, with a trembling hand, and pulled out the black dress.

"I'm sorry," she said, as she slipped it on over her head, and speaking as if she addressed some unseen guardian, "but I can't help it. If you don't want your things used, you keep him from coming in!"

The parson knocked at the door. Isabel took no notice. She was putting on the false front, the horn spectacles, the cashmere shawl, and the leghorn bonnet, with its long veil. She threw back the veil, and closed the chest. The parson knocked again. She heard him kicking the snow from his feet against the scraper. It might have betokened a decent care for her floors. It sounded to Isabel like a lover's haste, and smote her anew with that fear which is the forerunner of action. She blew out the lamp, and lighted a candle. Then she went to the door, schooling herself in desperation to remember this, to remember that, to remember, above all things, that her under dress was red and that her upper one had no back breadth. She threw open the door.

"Good-evening"--said the parson. He was, about to add "Miss Isabel," but the words stuck in his throat.

"She ain't to home," answered Isabel. "My niece ain't to home."

The parson had bent forward, and was eyeing her curiously, yet with benevolence. He knew all the residents within a large radius, and he expected, at another word from the shadowy masker, to recognize her also. "Will she be away long?" he hesitated.

"I guess she will," answered Isabel promptly. "She ain't to be relied on. I never found her so." Her spirits had risen. She knew how exactly she was imitating aunt Luceba's mode of speech. The tones were dramatically exact, albeit of a more resonant quality. "Auntie's voice is like suet," she thought. "Mine is vinegar. _But I've got it!_" A merry devil assailed her, the child of dramatic triumph. She spoke with decision: "Won't you come in?"

The parson crossed the sill, and waited courteously for her to precede him; but Isabel thought, in time, of her back breadth, and stood aside.

"You go fust," said she, "an' I'll shet the door."

He made his way into the ill-lighted sitting-room, and began to unpin his shawl.

"I ain't had my bunnit off sence I come," announced Isabel, entering with some bustle, and taking her stand, until he should be seated, within the darkest corner of the hearth. "I've had to turn to an' clear up, or I shouldn't ha' found a spot as big as a hin's egg to sleep in to-night. Maybe you don't know it, but my niece Isabel's got no more faculty about a house'n I have for preachin'--not a mite."

The parson had seated himself by the stove, and was laboriously removing his arctics. Isabel's eyes danced behind her spectacles as she thought how large and ministerial they were. She could not see them, for the spectacles dazzled her, but she remembered exactly how they looked. Everything about him filled her with glee, now that she was safe, though within his reach. "'Now, infidel,'" she said noiselessly, "'I have thee on the hip!'"

The parson had settled himself in his accustomed attitude when making parochial calls. He put the tips of his fingers together, and opened conversation in his tone of mild goodwill:--

"I don't seem to be able to place you. A relative of Miss Isabel's, did you say?"

She laughed huskily. She was absorbed in putting more suet into her voice.

"You make me think of uncle Peter Nudd," she replied, "when he was took up into Bunker Hill Monument. Albert took him, one o' the boys that lived in Boston. Comin' down, they met a woman Albert knew, an' he bowed. Uncle Peter looked round arter her, an' then he says to Albert, 'I dunno's I rightly remember who that is!'"

The parson uncrossed his legs and crossed them the other way. The old lady began to seem to him a thought too discursive, if not hilarious.

"I know so many of the people in the various parishes"--he began, but he was interrupted without compunction.

"You never'd know me. I'm from out West. Isabel's father's brother married my uncle--no, I would say my step-niece. An' so I'm her aunt. By adoption, 't ennyrate. We al'ays call it so, leastways when we're writin' back an' forth. An' I've heard how Isabel was goin' on, an' so I ketched up my bunnit, an' put for Tiverton. 'If she ever needed her own aunt,' says I--'her aunt by adoption--she needs her now.'"

Once or twice, during the progress of this speech, the visitor had shifted his position, as if ill at ease. Now he bent forward, and peered at his hostess.

"Isabel is well?" he began tentatively.

"Well enough! But, my sakes! I'd ruther she'd be sick abed or paraletic than carry on as she does. Slack? My soul! I wisht you could see her sink closet! I wisht you could take one look over the dirty dishes she leaves round, not washed from one week's end to another!"

"But she's always neat. She looks like an--an angel!"

Isabel could not at once suppress the gratified note which crept of itself into her voice.

"That's the outside o' the cup an' platter," she said knowingly. "I thank my stars she ain't likely to marry. She'd turn any man's house upside down inside of a week."

The parson made a deprecating noise in his throat. He seemed about to say something, and thought better of it.

"It may be," he hesitated, after a moment,--"it may be her studies take up too much of her time. I have always thought these elocution lessons"--

"Oh, my land!" cried Isabel, in passionate haste. She leaned forward as if she would implore him. "That's her only salvation. That's the makin' of her. If you stop her off there, I dunno but she'd jine a circus or take to drink! Don't you dast to do it! I'm in the family, an' I know."

The parson tried vainly to struggle out of his bewilderment.

"But," said he, "may I ask how you heard these reports? Living in Illinois, as you do--did you say Illinois or Iowa?"

"Neither," answered Isabel desperately. "'Way out on the plains. It's the last house afore you come to the Rockies. 'Law! you can't tell how a story gits started, nor how fast it will travel. 'Tain't like a gale o' wind; the weather bureau ain't been invented that can cal'late it. I heard of a man once that told a lie in California, an' 'fore the week was out it broke up his engagement in New Hampshire. There's the 'tater-bug--think how that travels! So with this. The news broke out in Missouri, an' here I be."

"I hope you will be able to remain."

"Only to-night," she said in haste. More and more nervous, she was losing hold on the sequence of her facts. "I'm like mortal life, here to-day an' there to-morrer. In the mornin' I sha'n't be found." ("But Isabel will," she thought, from a remorse which had come too late, "and she'll have to lie, or run away. Or cut a hole in the ice and drown herself!")

"I'm sorry to have her lose so much of your visit," began the parson courteously, but still perplexing himself over the whimsies of an old lady who flew on from the West, and made nothing of flying back. "If I could do anything towards finding her"--

"I know where she is," said Isabel unhappily. "She's as well on't as she can be, under the circumstances. There's on'y one thing you could do. If you should be willin' to keep it dark t you've seen me, I should be real beholden to ye. You know there ain't no time to call in the neighborhood, an' such things make talk, an' all. An' if you don't speak out to Isabel, so much the better. Poor creatur', she's got enough to bear without that!" Her voice dropped meltingly in the keenness of her sympathy for the unfortunate girl who, embarrassed enough before, had deliberately set for herself another snare. "I feel for Isabel," she continued, in the hope of impressing him with the necessity for silence and inaction. "I do feel for her! Oh, gracious me! What's that?"

A decided rap had sounded at the front door. The parson rose also, amazed at her agitation.

"Somebody knocked," he said. "Shall I go to the door?"

"Oh, not yet, not yet!" cried Isabel, clasping her hands under her cashmere shawl. "Oh, what shall I do?"

Her natural voice had asserted itself, but, strangely enough, the parson did not comprehend. The entire scene was too bewildering. There came a second knock. He stepped toward the door, but Isabel darted in front of him. She forgot her back breadth, and even through that dim twilight the scarlet of her gown shone ruddily out. She placed herself before the door.

"Don't you go!" she entreated hoarsely. "Let me think what I can say."

Then the parson had his first inkling that the strange visitor must be mad. He wondered at himself for not thinking of it before, and the idea speedily coupled itself with Isabel's strange disappearance. He stepped forward and grasped her arm, trembling under the cashmere shawl.

"Woman," he demanded sternly, "what have you done with Isabel North?"

Isabel was thinking; but the question, twice repeated, brought her to herself. She began to laugh, peal on peal of hysterical mirth; and the parson, still holding her arm, grew compassionate.

"Poor soul!" said he soothingly. "Poor soul! sit down here by the stove and be calm--be calm!"

Isabel was overcome anew.

"Oh, it isn't so!" she gasped, finding breath. "I'm not crazy. Just let me be!"

She started under his detaining hand, for the knock had come again. Wrenching herself free, she stepped into the entry. "Who's there?" she called.

"It's your aunt Mary Ellen," came a voice from the darkness. "Open the door."

"O my soul!" whispered Isabel to herself. "Wait a minute!" she continued. "Only a minute!"

She thrust the parson back into the sitting-room, and shut the door. The act relieved her. If she could push a minister, and he could obey in such awkward fashion, he was no longer to be feared. He was even to be refused. Isabel felt equal to doing it.

"Now, look here," said she rapidly; "you stand right there while I take off these things. Don't you say a word. No, Mr. Bond, don't you speak!" Bonnet, false front, and spectacles were tossed in a tumultuous pile.

"Isabel!" gasped the parson.

"Keep still!" she commanded. "Here! fold this shawl!"

The parson folded it neatly, and meanwhile Isabel stepped out of the mutilated dress, and added that also to the heap. She opened the blue chest, and packed the articles hastily within. "Here!" said she; "toss me the shawl. Now if you say one word--Oh, parson, if you only will keep still, I'll tell you all about it! That is, I guess I can!" And leaving him standing in hopeless coma, she opened the door.

"Well," said aunt Mary Ellen, stepping in, "I'm afraid your hinges want greasing. How do you do, Isabel? How do you do?" She put up her face and kissed her niece. Aunt Mary Ellen was so pretty, so round, so small, that she always seemed timid, and did the commonest acts of life with a gentle grace. "I heard voices," she said, walking into the sitting-room. "Sadie here?"

The parson had stepped forward, more bent than usual, for he was peering down into her face.

"Mary Ellen!" he exclaimed.

The little woman looked up at him--very sadly, Isabel thought.

"Yes, William," she answered. But she was untying her bonnet, and she did not offer to shake hands.

Isabel stood by with downcast eyes, waiting to take her things, and aunt Mary Ellen looked searchingly up at her as she laid her mittens on the pile. The girl, without a word, went into the bedroom, and her aunt followed her.

"Isabel," said she rapidly, "I saw the chest. Have you burnt the things?"

"No," answered Isabel in wonder. "No."

"Then don't you! don't you touch 'em for the world." She went back into the sitting-room, and Isabel followed. The candle was guttering, and aunt Mary Ellen pushed it toward her. "I don't know where the snuffers are," she said. "Lamp smoke?"

Isabel did not answer, but she lighted the lamp. She had never seen her aunt so full of decision, so charged with an unfamiliar power. She felt as if strange things were about to happen. The parson was standing awkwardly. He wondered whether he ought to go; Aunt Mary Ellen smoothed her brown hair with both hands, sat down, and pointed to his chair.

"Sit a spell," she said. "I guess I shall have something to talk over with you."

The parson sat down. He tried to put his fingers together, but they trembled, and he clasped his hands instead.

"It's a long time since we've seen you in Tiverton," he began.

"It would have been longer," she answered, "but I felt as if my niece needed me."

Here Isabel, to her own surprise, gave a little sob, and then another. She began crying angrily into her handkerchief.

"Isabel," said her aunt, "is there a fire in the kitchen?"

"Yes," sobbed the girl.

"Well, you go out there and lie down on the lounge till you feel better. Cover you over and don't be cold. I'll call you when there's anything for you to do."

Tall Isabel rose and walked out, wiping her eyes. Her little aunt sat mistress of the field. For many minutes there was silence, and the clock ticked. The parson felt something rising in his throat. He blew his nose vigorously.

"Mary Ellen"--he began. "But I don't know as you want me to call you so!"

"You can call me anything you're a mind to," she answered calmly. She was nearsighted, and had always worn spectacles. She took them off and laid them on her knee. The parson moved involuntarily in his chair. He remembered how she had used to do that when they were talking intimately, so that his eager look might not embarrass her. "Nothing makes much difference when folks get to be as old as you and I are."

"I don't feel old," said the parson resentfully. "I do _not_! And you don't look so."

"Well, I am. We're past our youth. We've got to the point where the only way to renew it is to look out for the young ones."

The parson had always had with her a way of reading her thought and bursting out boyishly into betrayal of his own.

"Mary Ellen," he cried, "I never should have explained it so, but Isabel looks like you!"

She smiled sadly. "I guess men make themselves think 'most anything they want to," she answered. "There may be a family look, but I can't see it. She's tall, too, and I was always a pint o' cider--so father said."

"She's got the same look in her eyes," pursued the parson hotly. "I've always thought so, ever since she was a little girl."

"If you begun to notice it then," she responded, with the same gentle calm, "you'd better by half ha' been thinking of your own wife and her eyes. I believe they were black."

"Mary Ellen, how hard you are on me! You didn't use to be. You never were hard on anybody. You wouldn't have hurt a fly."

Her face contracted slightly. "Perhaps I wouldn't! perhaps I wouldn't! But I've had a good deal to bear this afternoon, and maybe I do feel a little different towards you from what I ever have felt. I've been hearing a loose-tongued woman tell how my own niece has been made town-talk because a man old enough to know better was running after her. I said, years ago, I never would come into this place while you was in it; but when I heard that, I felt as if Providence had marked out the way. I knew I was the one to step into the breach. So I had Tim harness up and bring me over, and here I am. William, I don't want you should make a mistake at your time of life!"

The minister seemed already a younger man. A strong color had risen in his face. He felt in her presence a fine exhilaration denied him through all the years without her. Who could say whether it was the woman herself or the resurrected spirit of their youth? He did not feel like answering her. It was enough to hear her voice. He leaned forward, looking at her with something piteous in his air.

"Mary Ellen," he ventured, "you might as well say 'another mistake.' I did make one. You know it, and I know it."

She looked at him with a frank affection, entirely maternal. "Yes, William," she said, with the same gentle firmness in her voice, "we've passed so far beyond those things that we can speak out and feel no shame. You did make a mistake. I don't know as 'twould be called so to break with me, but it was to marry where you did. You never cared about her. You were good to her. You always would be, William; but 'twas a shame to put her there."

The parson had locked his hands upon his knees. He looked at them, and sad lines of recollection deepened in his face.

"I was desperate," he said at length, in a low tone. "I had lost you. Some men take to drink, but that never tempted me. Besides, I was a minister. I was just ordained. Mary Ellen, do you remember that day?" "Yes," she answered softly, "I remember." She had leaned back in her chair, and her eyes were fixed upon vacancy with the suffused look of tears forbidden to fall.

"You wore a white dress," went on the parson, "and a bunch of Provence roses. It was June. Your sister always thought you dressed too gay, but you said to her, 'I guess I can wear what I want, to, to-day of all times."

"We won't talk about her. Yes, I remember."

"And, as God is my witness, I couldn't feel solemn, I was so glad! I was a minister, and my girl--the girl that was going to marry me--sat down there where I could see her, dressed in white. I always thought of you afterwards with that white dress on. You've stayed with me all my life, just that way."

Mary Ellen put up her hand with a quick gesture to hide her middle-aged face. With a thought as quick, she folded it resolutely upon the other in her lap. "Yes, William," she said. "I was a girl then. I wore white a good deal."

But the parson hardly heeded her. He was far away. "Mary Ellen," he broke out suddenly, a smile running warmly over his face, and creasing his dry, hollow cheeks, "do you remember that other sermon, my trial one? I read it to you, and then I read it to Parson Sibley. And do you remember what he said?"

"Yes, I remember. I didn't suppose you did." Her cheeks were pink. The corners of her mouth grew exquisitely tender.

"You knew I did! 'Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves' eyes.' I took that text because I couldn't think of anything else all summer. I remember now it seemed to me as if I was in a garden--always in a garden. The moon was pretty bright, that summer. There were more flowers blooming than common. It must have been a good year. And I wrote my sermon lying out in the pine woods, down where you used to sit hemming on your things. And I thought it was the Church, but do all I could, it was a girl--or an angel!"

"No, no!" cried Mary Ellen, in bitterness of entreaty.

"And then I read the sermon to you under the pines, and you stopped sewing, and looked off into the trees; and you said 'twas beautiful. But I carried it to old Parson Sibley that night, and I can see just how he looked sitting there in his study, with his great spectacles pushed up on his forehead, and his hand drumming on a book. He had the dictionary put in a certain place on his table because he found he'd got used to drumming on the Bible, and he was a very particular man. And when I got through reading the sermon, his face wrinkled all up, though he didn't laugh out loud, and he came over to me and put his hand on my shoulder. 'William,' says he, 'you go home and write a doctrinal sermon, the stiffest you can. _This one's about a girl_. You might give it to Mary Ellen North for a wedding-present.'"

The parson had grown almost gay under the vivifying influence of memory. But Mary Ellen did not smile.

"Yes," she repeated softly, "I remember."

"And then I laughed a little, and got out of the study the best way I could, and ran over to you to tell you what he said. And I left the sermon in your work-basket. I've often wished, in the light of what came afterwards--I've often wished I'd kept it. Somehow 'twould have brought me nearer to you."

It seemed as if she were about to rise from her chair, but she quieted herself and dulled the responsive look upon her face.

"Mary Ellen," the parson burst forth, "I know how I took what came on us the very next week, but I never knew how you took it. Should you just as lieves tell me?"

She lifted her head until it held a noble pose. Her eyes shone brilliantly, though indeed they were doves' eyes.

"I'll tell you," said she "I couldn't have told you ten years ago,--no, nor five! but now it's an old woman talking to an old man. I was given to understand you were tired of me, and too honorable to say so. I don't know what tale was carried to you"--

"She said you'd say 'yes' to that rich fellow in Sudleigh, if I'd give you a chance!"

"I knew 'twas something as shallow as that. Well, I'll tell you how I took it. I put up my head and laughed. I said, 'When William Bond wants to break with me, he'll say so.' And the next day you did say so."

The parson wrung his hands in an involuntary gesture of appeal.

"Minnie! Minnie!" he cried, "why didn't you save me? What made you let me _be_ a fool?"

She met his gaze with a tenderness so great that the words lost all their sting.

"You always were, William," she said quietly. "Always rushing at things like Job's charger, and having to rush back again. Never once have I read that without thinking of you. That's why you fixed up an angel out of poor little Isabel."

The parson made a fine gesture of dissent. He had forgotten Isabel.

"Do you want to know what else I did?" Her voice grew hard and unfamiliar. "I'll tell you. I went to my sister Eliza, and I said: 'Some way or another, you've spoilt my life. I'll forgive you just as soon as I can--maybe before you die, maybe not. You come with me!' and I went up garret, where she kept the chest with things in it that belonged to them that had died. There it sets now. I stood over it with her. 'I'm going to put my dead things in here,' I said. If you touch a finger to 'em, I'll get up in meeting and tell what you've done. I'm going to put in everything left from what you've murdered; and every time you come here, you'll remember you were a murderer.' I frightened her. I'm glad I did. She's dead and gone, and I've forgiven her; but I'm glad now!"

The parson looked at her with amazement. She seemed on fire. All the smouldering embers of a life denied had blazed at last. She put on her glasses and walked over to the chest.

"Here!" she continued; "let's uncover the dead. I've tried to do it ever since she died, so the other things could be burned; but my courage failed me. Could you turn these screws, if I should get you a knife? They're in tight. I put 'em in myself, and she stood by."

The little lid of the till had been screwed fast. The two middle-aged people bent over it together, trying first the scissors and then the broken blade of the parson's old knife. The screws came slowly. When they were all out, he stood back a pace and gazed at her. Mary Ellen looked no longer alert and vivified. Her face was haggard.

"I shut it," she said, in a whisper. "You lift it up."

The parson lifted the lid. There they lay, her poor little relics,--a folded manuscript, an old-fashioned daguerreotype, and a tiny locket. The parson could not see. His hand shook as he took them solemnly out and gave them to her. She bent over the picture, and looked at it, as we search the faces of the dead. He followed her to the light, and, wiping his glasses, looked also.

"That was my picture," he said musingly. "I never've had one since. And that was mother's locket. It had"--He paused and looked at her.

"Yes," said Mary Ellen softly; "it's got it now." She opened the little trinket; a warm, thick lock of hair lay within, and she touched it gently with her finger. "Should you like the locket, because 'twas your mother's?"

She hesitated; and though the parson's tone halted also, he answered at once:--

"No, Mary Ellen, not if you'll keep it. I should rather think 'twas with you."

She put her two treasures in her pocket, and gave him the other.

"I guess that's your share," she said, smiling faintly. "Don't read it here. Just take it away with you."

The manuscript had been written in the cramped and awkward hand of his youth, and the ink upon the paper was faded after many years. He turned the pages, a smile coming now and then.

"'Thou hast doves' eyes,'" he read,--"'thou hast doves' eyes!'" He murmured a sentence here and there. "Mary Ellen," he said at last, shaking his head over the manuscript in a droll despair, "it isn't a sermon. Parson Sibley had the rights of it. It's a love-letter!" And the two old people looked in each other's wet eyes and smiled.

The woman was the first to turn away.

"There!" said she, closing the lid of the chest; "we've said enough. We've wiped out old scores. We've talked more about ourselves than we ever shall again; for if old age brings anything, it's thinking of other people--them that have got life before 'em. These your rubbers?"

The parson put them on, with a dazed obedience. His hand shook in buckling them. Mary Ellen passed him his coat, but he noticed that she did not offer to hold it for him. There was suddenly a fine remoteness in her presence, as if a frosty air had come between them. The parson put the sermon in his inner pocket, and buttoned his coat tightly over it. Then he pinned on his shawl. At the door he turned.

"Mary Ellen," said he pleadingly, "don't you ever want to see the sermon again? Shouldn't you like to read it over?"

She hesitated. It seemed for a moment as if she might not answer at all. Then she remembered that they were old folks, and need not veil the truth.

"I guess I know it 'most all by heart," she said quietly. "Besides, I took a copy before I put it in there. Good-night!"

"Good-night!" answered the parson joyously. He closed the door behind him and went crunching down the icy path. When he had unfastened the horse and sat tucking the buffalo-robe around him, the front door was opened in haste, and a dark figure came flying, down the walk.

"Mr. Bond!" thrilled a voice.

"Whoa!" called the parson excitedly. He was throwing back the robe to leap from the sleigh when the figure reached him. "Oh!" said he; "Isabel!"

She was breathing hard with excitement and the determination grown up in her mind during that last half hour of her exile in the kitchen.

"Parson,"--forgetting a more formal address, and laying her hand on his knee,--"I've got to say it! Won't you please forgive me? Won't you, please? I can't explain it"--

"Bless your heart, child!" answered the parson cordially; "you needn't try to. I guess I made you nervous."

"Yes," agreed Isabel, with a sigh of relief, "I guess you did." And the parson drove away.

Isabel ran, light of heart and foot, back into the warm sitting-room, where aunt Mary Ellen was standing just where he had left her. She had her glasses off, and she looked at Isabel with a smile so vivid that the girl caught her breath, and wondered within herself how aunt Mary Ellen had looked when she was young.

"Isabel," said she, "you come here and give me a corner of your apron to wipe my glasses. I guess it's drier'n my handkerchief."

[The end]
Alice Brown's short story: The Mortuary Chest

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