unhesitatingly entered.

"For the land's sake!" cried a cheery voice. "You scared me most to
death! I saw the smoke coming from the chimney and thought the house
was afire, so I come over to see."

Miss Evelina stiffened, and made no reply.

"I don't know who you are," said the woman again, mildly defiant, "but
this is Evelina Grey's house."

"And I," answered Miss Evelina, almost inaudibly, "am Evelina Grey."

"For the land's sake!" cried the visitor again. "Don't you remember
me? Why, Evelina, you and I used to go to school together. You----"

She stopped, abruptly. The fact of the veiled face confronted her
stubbornly. She ransacked her memory for a forgotten catastrophe, a
quarter of a century back. Impenetrably, a wall was reared between
them.

"I--I'm afraid I don't remember," stammered Miss Evelina, in a low
voice, hoping that the intruder would go.

"I used to be Mehitable Smith, and that's what I am still, having been
spared marriage. Mehitable is my name, but folks calls me Hitty--Miss
Hitty," she added, with a slight accent on the "Miss."

"Oh," answered Miss Evelina, "I remember," though she did not remember
at all.