“It isn’t a horrible boardinghouse, Anne-girl.  Here’s our cab.  Hop in—­the driver will get your trunk.  Oh, yes, the boardinghouse—­it’s really a very nice place of its kind, as you’ll admit tomorrow morning when a good night’s sleep has turned your blues rosy pink.  It’s a big, old-fashioned, gray stone house on St. John Street, just a nice little constitutional from Redmond.  It used to be the ‘residence’ of great folk, but fashion has deserted St. John Street and its houses only dream now of better days.  They’re so big that people living in them have to take boarders just to fill up.  At least, that is the reason our landladies are very anxious to impress on us.  They’re delicious, Anne—­our landladies, I mean.”

“How many are there?”

“Two.  Miss Hannah Harvey and Miss Ada Harvey.  They were born twins about fifty years ago.”

“I can’t get away from twins, it seems,” smiled Anne.  “Wherever I go they confront me.”

“Oh, they’re not twins now, dear.  After they reached the age of thirty they never were twins again.  Miss Hannah has grown old, not too gracefully, and Miss Ada has stayed thirty, less gracefully still.  I don’t know whether Miss Hannah can smile or not; I’ve never caught her at it so far, but Miss Ada smiles all the time and that’s worse.  However, they’re nice, kind souls, and they take two boarders every year because Miss Hannah’s economical soul cannot bear to ’waste room space’—­not because they need to or have to, as Miss Ada has told me seven times since Saturday night.  As for our rooms, I admit they are hall bedrooms, and mine does look out on the back yard.  Your room is a front one and looks out on Old St. John’s graveyard, which is just across the street.”

“That sounds gruesome,” shivered Anne.  “I think I’d rather have the back yard view.”

“Oh, no, you wouldn’t.  Wait and see.  Old St. John’s is a darling place.  It’s been a graveyard so long that it’s ceased to be one and has become one of the sights of Kingsport.  I was all through it yesterday for a pleasure exertion.  There’s a big stone wall and a row of enormous trees all around it, and rows of trees all through it, and the queerest old tombstones, with the queerest and quaintest inscriptions.  You’ll go there to study, Anne, see if you don’t.  Of course, nobody is ever buried there now.  But a few years ago they put up a beautiful monument to the memory of Nova Scotian soldiers who fell in the Crimean War.  It is just opposite the entrance gates and there’s ‘scope for imagination’ in it, as you used to say.  Here’s your trunk at last—­and the boys coming to say good night.  Must I really shake hands with Charlie Sloane, Anne?  His hands are always so cold and fishy-feeling.  We must ask them to call occasionally.  Miss Hannah gravely told me we could have ’young gentlemen callers’ two evenings in the week, if they went away at a reasonable hour; and Miss Ada asked me, smiling, please to be sure they didn’t sit on her beautiful cushions.  I promised to see to it; but goodness knows where else they can sit, unless they sit on the floor, for there are cushions on everything.  Miss Ada even has an elaborate Battenburg one on top of the piano.”