that she had loved one who was far above her.

"No, dear, him I speak of could never think of me," she said.
"When we was young together his mother didn't favor the match, an'
done everything she could to part us; and folks thought we both
married well, but't wa'n't what either one of us wanted most; an'
now we're left alone again, an' might have had each other all the
time. He was above bein' a seafarin' man, an' prospered more
than most; he come of a high family, an' my lot was plain an' hard-
workin'. I ain't seen him for some years; he's forgot our youthful
feelin's, I expect, but a woman's heart is different; them feelin's
comes back when you think you've done with 'em, as sure as spring
comes with the year. An' I've always had ways of hearin' about
him."

She stood in the centre of a braided rug, and its rings of
black and gray seemed to circle about her feet in the dim light.
Her height and massiveness in the low room gave her the look of a
huge sibyl, while the strange fragrance of the mysterious herb blew
in from the little garden.




III


The Schoolhouse

FOR SOME DAYS after this, Mrs. Todd's customers came and went past