“No,” said I, “I’m Miss Denis:  Miss Lancaster is at home, though:  come in, won’t you?”

“O Mrs. Patton!” said Kate, who came down just then.  “How very kind of you to come over so soon!  I should have gone to see you to-day.  I was asking Mrs. Kew last night if you were here.”

“Land o’ compassion!” said Mrs. Patton, as she shook Kate’s hand delightedly.  “Where’d ye s’pose I’d be, dear?  I ain’t like to move away from Deephaven now, after I’ve held by the place so long, I’ve got as many roots as the big ellum.  Well, I should know you were a Brandon, no matter where I see you.  You’ve got a real Brandon look; tall and straight, ain’t you?  It’s four or five years since I saw you, except once at church, and once you went by, down to the shore, I suppose.  It was a windy day in the spring of the year.”

“I remember it very well,” said Kate.  “Those were both visits of only a day or two, and I was here at Aunt Katharine’s funeral, and went away that same evening.  Do you remember once I was here in the summer for a longer visit, five or six years ago, and I helped you pick currants in the garden?  You had a very old mug.”

“Now, whoever would ha’ thought o’ your rec’lecting that?” said Mrs. Patton.  “Yes.  I had that mug because it was handy to carry about among the bushes, and then I’d empt’ it into the basket as fast as I got it full.  Your aunt always told me to pick all I wanted; she couldn’t use ‘em, but they used to make sights o’ currant wine in old times.  I s’pose that mug would be considerable of a curiosity to anybody that wasn’t used to seeing it round.  My grand’ther Joseph Toggerson—­my mother was a Toggerson—­picked it up on the long sands in a wad of sea-weed:  strange it wasn’t broke, but it’s tough; I’ve dropped it on the floor, many’s the time, and it ain’t even chipped.  There’s some Dutch reading on it and it’s marked 1732.  Now I shouldn’t ha’ thought you’d remembered that old mug, I declare.  Your aunt she had a monstrous sight of chiny.  She’s told me where ’most all of it come from, but I expect I’ve forgot.  My memory fails me a good deal by spells.  If you hadn’t come down I suppose your mother would have had the chiny packed up this spring,—­what she didn’t take with her after your aunt died.  S’pose she hasn’t made up her mind what to do with the house?”

“No,” said Kate; “she wishes she could:  it is a great puzzle to us.”

“I hope you will find it in middling order,” said Mrs. Patton, humbly.  “Me and Mis’ Dockum have done the best we knew,—­opened the windows and let in the air and tried to keep it from getting damp.  I fixed all the woollens with fresh camphire and tobacco the last o’ the winter; you have to be dreadful careful in one o’ these old houses, ’less everything gets creaking with moths in no time.  Miss Katharine, how she did hate the sight of a moth-miller!  There’s something I’ll speak about before I forget it:  the mice have eat the backs of a pile o’ old