rds the light. And Sylvia had
set also on the table a burnished pitcher of a rosy copper-color full
of apple blossoms.

She looked at it when she had set the candle on the shelf. It seemed
to her that all the light in the room centred on it, and it shone in
her eyes like a copper lamp.

Charlotte also glanced at it. "Why, Richard must have come while you
were over to our house," she said.

"It don't make any odds if he did," returned Sylvia, with a faint
blush and a bridle. Sylvia was much younger than her sister. Standing
there in the dim light she did not look so much older than her niece.
Her figure had the slim angularity and primness which are sometimes
seen in elderly women who are not matrons, and she had donned a
little white lace cap at thirty, but her face had still a delicate
bloom, and the wistful wonder of expression which belongs to youth.

However, she never thought of Charlotte as anything but a child as
compared with herself. Sylvia felt very old, and the more so that she
grudged her years painfully. She stirred up the fire a little,
holding back her shiny black silk skirt carefully. Charlotte stood
leaning against the shelf, looking moodily down at the fire.

"I wouldn't feel bad if I was you, Charlotte," Sylvia ventured,
timidly.

"I guess we'd better go to bed pretty soon," returned Charlotte. "It
must be late."

"Had you rather sleep with me, Charlotte, or sleep in the spare
chamber?"

"I guess I'll go in the spare chamber."

"Well, I'll get you a night-gown."

Both of their faces were sober, but perfectly staid. They bade each
other good-night without a quiver; but Charlotte, after she had said
her dutiful and unquestioning prayer, and lay folded in Sylvia's
ruffled night-gown in the best bed, shook with great sobs. "Poor
Barney!" she kept muttering. "Poor Barney! poor Barney!"

The doors were all open, and once she thought she heard a sob from
below, then concluded she must be mistaken. But she was not, for
Sylvia Crane was lamenting as sorely as the younger maiden up-stairs.
"Poor Richard!" she repeated, piteously. "Poor Richard! There he
came, and the stone was up, and he had to go away."

The faces which were so clear to the hearts of both women, as if they
were before their eyes, had a certain similarity. Indeed, Richard
Alger and Barnabas Thayer were distantly related on the mother's
side, and people said they looked enough alike to be brothers. Sylvia
saw the same type of fa