does.  It was pleasant, though, in Aunt Barbara’s sitting room.  It was always pleasant there, and it seemed doubly so to-night from the contrast presented to the world without by the white-washed ceiling, the newly whipped carpet, the clean, white curtains, and the fire blazing on the hearth, where two huge red apples were roasting.  This was a favorite custom of Aunt Barbara’s, roasting apples in the evening.  She used to do it when Ethie was at home, for Ethie enjoyed it quite as much as she did, and when the red cheeks burst, and the white frothy pulp came oozing out, she used, as a little girl, to clap her hands and cry, “The apples begin to bleed, auntie! the apples begin to bleed!”

Aunt Barbara never roasted them now that she did not remember her darling, and many times she put one down for Ethie, feeing that the “make believe” was better than nothing at all.  There was one for to-night, and Aunt Barbara sat watching it as it simmered and sputtered, and finally burst with the heat, “bleeding,” just as her heart was bleeding for the runaway whose feet had wandered so long.  It was after nine, and Betty had gone to bed, so that Aunt Barbara was there alone, with the big Bible in her lap.  She had been reading the parable of the Prodigal, and though she would not liken Ethie to him, she sighed softly, “If she would only come, we would kill the fatted calf.”  Then, thoughtfully, she turned the leaves of the Good Book one by one, till she found the “Births,” and read in a low whisper, “Ethelyn Adelaide, Born,” and so forth.  Then her eye moved on to where the marriage of Ethelyn Adelaide with Richard Markham, of Iowa, had been recorded; and then she turned to the last of “Deaths,” wondering if, unseen by her, Ethie’s name had been added to the list.  The last name visible to mortal eye was that of Julia, wife of William Grant, who had died at the age of twenty-five.

“Just as old as Ethie is, if living,” Aunt Barbara whispered, and the tears which blotted the name of Julia Grant were given to Ethie rather than the young half-sister who had been so much of a stranger.

Suddenly, as Aunt Barbara sat there, with her Bible in her lap, there was heard the distant rumbling of the New York express, as it came rolling across the plains from West Chicopee.  Then as the roar became more muffled as it moved under the hill, a shrill whistle echoed on the night air, and half the people of Chicopee who were awake said to each other, “The train is stopping.  Somebody has come from New York.”  It was not often that the New York express stopped at Chicopee, and when it did, it was made a matter of comment.  To-night, however, it was too dark, and stormy, and late for anyone to see who had come; and guessing it was some of the Lewises, who now lived in Col.  Markham’s old house, the people, one by one, went to their beds, until nearly every light in Chicopee was extinguished save the one shining out into the darkness from the room where Aunt Barbara sat, with thoughts of Ethie in her heart.  And up the steep hill, from the station, through the snow, a girlish figure toiled—­the white, thin face looking wistfully down the maple-lined street when the corner by the common was turned, and the pallid lips whispering softly, “I wonder if she will know me?”