“Of course I wouldn’t want Mrs. Allen to know, but I’ve thought that sometime when he was away and there was nobody there to see, I’d just step in for a few minutes and take a look at his goods.  Elmiry Jones says his calico is beautiful, and that for her part, she’s going to trade there instead of at Allen’s.  I suppose it is a temptation.  I might do it myself, if ’t want for my principles.”

The speaker paused for breath, but Miss Evelina still sat silently in her chair.  “What was it?” thought Miss Hitty.  “I was here, and I knew at the time, but what happened?  How did I come to forget?  I must be getting old!”

She searched her memory without result.  Her house was situated at the crossroads, and, being on higher ground, commanded a good view of the village below.  Gradually, her dooryard had become a sort of clearing house for neighbourhood gossip.  Travellers going and coming stopped at Miss Hitty’s to drink from the moss-grown well, give their bit of news, and receive, in return, the scandal of the countryside.  Had it not been for the faithful and industrious Miss Mehitable, the town might have needed a daily paper.

“Strange I can’t think,” she said to herself.  “I don’t doubt it’ll come to me, though.  Something happened to Evelina, and she went away, and her mother went with her to take care of her, and then her mother died, all at once, of heart failure.  It happened the same week old Mis’ Hicks had a doctor from the city for an operation, and the Millerses barn was struck by lightning and burnt up, and so I s’pose it’s no wonder I’ve sorter lost track of it.”

Miss Evelina’s veiled face was wholly averted now, and Miss Hitty studied her shrewdly.  She noted that the black gown was well-worn, and had, indeed, been patched in several places.  The shoes which tapped impatiently on the floor were undeniably shabby, though they had been carefully blacked.  Against the unrelieved sombreness of her gown.  Miss Evelina’s hands were singularly frail and transparent.  Every line of her body was eloquent of weakness and well-nigh insupportable grief.

“Well,” said Miss Hitty, again, though she felt that the words were flat; “I’m glad you’ve come back.  It seems like old times for us to be settin’ here, talkin’, and—­” here she laughed shrilly—­“we’ve both been spared marriage.”

A small, slender hand clutched convulsively at the arm of the haircloth chair, but Miss Evelina did not speak.

“I see,” went on Miss Hitty, not unkindly, “that you’re still in mourning for your mother.  You mustn’t take it so hard.  Sometimes folks get to feeling so sorry about something that they can’t never get over it, and they keep on going round and round all the time like a squirrel in a wheel, and keep on getting weaker till it gets to be a kind of disease there ain’t no cure for.  Leastwise, that’s what Doctor Dexter says.”

“Doctor Dexter!” With a cry, Miss Evelina sprang to her feet, her hands tightly pressed to her heart.