opened the door cautiously. A white figure was flitting up and down,
wringing its hands, the gray hair bobbing about the jerking head.

"No use!" it moaned. "No use, no use, no use! I'm old, old, old!
Seventy-four, seventy-four, seventy-four! Oh, Lord! oh, Lord! oh, Lord!
Thy ways are past finding out. Amen!"

Abby closed her door hurriedly. She felt the tragedy out there was not
for mortal eyes to look upon. In a few moments she heard the steps pause
before her door. Hands beat lightly upon it.

"Give me back those thirty years!" whimpered the old voice. "They are
mine! You have stolen them from me!"

Abby's hair rose. "Is Marian going mad?" she thought.

But the next morning Miss Webster looked as usual when she appeared,
after her late breakfast in bed, bedecked for her drive to market. She
had modified her mourning, and wore a lavender cheviot, and the parasol
and hat were in harmony with all but herself.

"Poor old caricature!" thought Abby. "She makes me feel young."

A week later, when the maid entered Miss Webster's bedroom at the
accustomed morning hour, she found that the bed had not been occupied.
Nor was her mistress visible. The woman informed Miss Williams at once,
and together they searched the house. They found her in her brother's
room, in the old mahogany bed in which she too had been born. She was
dead. Her gray hair was smooth under her lace nightcap. Her hands were
folded, the nails glistening in the dusky room. Death had come