Something happened after this which touched us both inexpressibly:  she sat for some time watching Kate with a bewildered look, which at last faded away, a smile coming in its place.  “I think you are like my mother,” she said; “did any one ever say to you that you are like my mother?  Will you let me see your forehead?  Yes; and your hair is only a little darker.”  Kate had risen when Miss Chauncey did, and they stood side by side.  There was a tone in the old lady’s voice which brought the tears to my eyes.  She stood there some minutes looking at Kate.  I wonder what her thoughts were.  There was a kinship, it seemed to me, not of blood, only that they both were of the same stamp and rank:  Miss Chauncey of the old generation and Kate Lancaster of the new.  Miss Chauncey turned to me, saying, “Look up at the portrait and you will see the likeness too, I think.”  But when she turned and saw the bare wainscoting of the room, she looked puzzled, and the bright flash which had lighted up her face was gone in an instant, and she sat down again in the window-seat; but we were glad that she had forgotten.  Presently she said, “Pardon me, but I forget your question.”

Miss Carew had told us to ask her about her school-days, as she nearly always spoke of that time to her; and, to our delight, Miss Sally told us a long story about her friends and about her “coming-out party,” when boat-loads of gay young guests came down from Riverport, and all the gentry from Deephaven.  The band from the fort played for the dancing, the garden was lighted, the card-tables were in this room, and a grand supper was served.  She also remembered what some of her friends wore, and her own dress was a silver-gray brocade with rosebuds of three colors.  She told us how she watched the boats go off up river in the middle of the summer night; how sweet the music sounded; how bright the moonlight was; how she wished we had been there at her party.

“I can’t believe I am an old woman.  It seems only yesterday,” said she, thoughtfully.  And then she lost the idea, and talked about Kate’s great-grandmother, whom she had known, and asked us how she had been this summer.

She asked us if we would like to go up stairs where she had a fire, and we eagerly accepted, though we were not in the least cold.  Ah, what a sorry place it was!  She had gathered together some few pieces of her old furniture, which half filled one fine room, and here she lived.  There was a tall, handsome chest of drawers, which I should have liked much to ransack.  Miss Carew had told us that Miss Chauncey had large claims against the government, dating back sixty or seventy years, but nobody could ever find the papers; and I felt sure that they must be hidden away in some secret drawer.  The brass handles and trimmings were blackened, and the wood looked like ebony.  I wanted to climb up and look into the upper part of this antique piece of furniture, and it seemed to me I could at once put my hand on a package of “papers relating to the embargo.”