She is several years older than I. The town makes her an allowance every year, and she has some friends who take care that she does not suffer, though her wants are few.  She is an elegant woman still, and some day, if you like, I will give you something to carry to her, and a message, if I can think of one, and you must go to make her a call.  I hope she will happen to be talkative, for I am sure you would enjoy her.  For many years she did not like to see strangers, but some one has told me lately that she seems to be pleased if people go to see her.”

You may be sure it was not many days before Kate and I claimed the basket and the message, and went again to East Parish.  We boldly lifted the great brass knocker, and were dismayed because nobody answered.  While we waited, a girl came up the walk and said that Miss Sally lived up stairs, and she would speak to her if we liked.  “Sometimes she don’t have sense enough to know what the knocker means,” we were told.  There was evidently no romance about Miss Sally to our new acquaintance.

“Do you think,” said I, “that we might go in and look around the lower rooms?  Perhaps she will refuse to see us.”

“Yes, indeed,” said the girl; “only run the minute I speak; you’ll have time enough, for she walks slow and is a little deaf.”

So we went into the great hall with its wide staircase and handsome cornices and panelling, and then into the large parlor on the right, and through it to a smaller room looking out on the garden, which sloped down to the river.  Both rooms had fine carved mantels, with Dutch-tiled fireplaces, and in the cornices we saw the fastenings where pictures had hung,—­old portraits, perhaps.  And what had become of them?  The girl did not know:  the house had been the same ever since she could remember, only it would all fall through into the cellar soon.  But the old lady was proud as Lucifer, and wouldn’t hear of moving out.

The floor in the room toward the river was so broken that it was not safe, and we came back through the hall and opened the door at the foot of the stairs.  “Guess you won’t want to stop long there,” said the girl.  Three old hens and a rooster marched toward us with great solemnity when we looked in.  The cobwebs hung in the room, as they often do in old barns, in long, gray festoons; the lilacs outside grew close against the two windows where the shutters were not drawn, and the light in the room was greenish and dim.

Then we took our places on the threshold, and the girl went up stairs and announced us to Miss Sally, and in a few minutes we heard her come along the hall.