the misunderstanding they began to fall into, and met her with a smile of
hospitable brilliancy, and a recognition full of compassionate welcome.

Mrs. Lander gave way to her tears as she broke out, "Oh, it ain't the way
it was the last time I was he'a! You hea'd that he--that Mr. Landa--"

"Mrs. Atwell told me," said Clementina. "Won't you come in, and sit
down?"

"Why, yes." Mrs. Lander pushed in through the narrow door of what was to
be the parlor. Her crapes swept about her and exhaled a strong scent of
their dyes. Her veil softened her heavy face; but she had not grown
thinner in her bereavement.

"I just got to the Middlemount last night," she said, "and I wanted to
see you and your payrents, both, Miss Claxon. It doos bring him back so!
You won't neva know how much he thought of you, and you'll all think I'm
crazy. I wouldn't come as long as he was with me, and now I have to come
without him; I held out ag'inst him as long as I had him to hold out
ag'inst. Not that he was eva one to push, and I don't know as he so much
as spoke of it, afta we left the hotel two yea's ago; but I presume it
wa'n't out of his mind a single minute. Time and time again I'd say to
him, 'Now, Albe't, do you feel about it just the way you done?' and he'd
say, 'I ha'r't had any call to charge my mind about it,' and then I'd
begin tryin' to ahgue him out of it, and keep a hectorin', till he'd say,
'Well, I'm not askin' you to do it,' and that's all I could get out of
him. But I see all the while 't he wanted me to do it, whateva he asked,
and now I've got to do it when it can't give him any pleasure." Mrs.
Lander put up her black-bordered handkerchief and sobbed into it, and
Clementina waited till her grief had spent itself; then she gave her a