candle to the page while she struggled to adjust a circuitous alto to
her father's tenor. On the hither side of the Popham house, and quite
obscured by it, stood Letitia Boynton's one-story gray cottage. It had
a clump of tall cedar trees for background and the bare branches of
the elms in front were hung lightly with snow garlands. As Mrs.
Larrabee came closer, she set down her lantern and looked fixedly at
the familiar house as if something new arrested her gaze.

"It looks like a little night-light!" she thought. "And how queer of
Letty to be sitting at the open window!"

Nearer still she crept, yet not so near as to startle her friend. A
tall brass candlestick, with a lighted tallow candle in it, stood on
the table in the parlor window; but the room in which Letty sat was
unlighted save by the fire on the hearth, which gleamed brightly
behind the quaint andirons--Hessian soldiers of iron, painted in gay
colors. Over the mantel hung the portrait of Letty's mother, a benign
figure clad in black silk, the handsome head topped by a snowy muslin
cap with floating strings. Just round the corner of the fireplace was
a half-open door leading into a tiny bedroom, and the flickering flame
lighted the heads of two sleeping children, arms interlocked, bright
tangled curls flowing over one pillow.

Letty herself sat in a low chair by the open window wrapped in an old
cape of ruddy brown homespun, from the folds of which her delicate
head rose like a flower in a bouquet of autumn leaves. One elbow
rested on the table; her chin in the cup of her hand. Her head was
turned away a little so that one could see only the knot of bronze
hair, the curve of a cheek, and the sweep of an eyelash.