With her feet upon the hearth and the single candle flickering upon the
mantel shelf, she sat in the lonely house and sipped her tea. Her
well-worn black gown clung closely to her figure, and the white chiffon
veil, thrown back, did not wholly hide her abundant hair. The horror
of one night had whitened Miss Evelina's brown hair at twenty, for the
sorrows of Youth are unmercifully keen.

"I have come back," she thought. "I have come back through that door.
I went out of it, laughing, at twenty. At forty-five, I have come
back, heart-broken, and I have lived.

"Why did I not die?" she questioned, for the thousandth time. "If
there had been a God in Heaven, surely I must have died."

The flames leaped merrily in the fireplace and the discordant noises of
the house resolved themselves into vague harmony. A cricket, safely
ensconced for the Winter in a crevice of the hearth, awoke in the
unaccustomed warmth, piping a shrill and cheery welcome, but Miss
Evelina sat abstractedly, staring into the fire.

After all, there had never been anything but happiness in the
house--the misery had been outside. Peace and quiet content had dwelt
there securely, but the memory of it brought no balm now.

As though it were yesterday, the black walnut chair, covered with
haircloth, stood primly against the wall. Miss Evelina had always
hated the chair, and here, after twenty-five years, it confronted her
again. She mused, ironically, upon the permanence of things usually
considered transient and temporary. Her mother's sewing was still upon
the marble-topped table, but the hands that held it were long since