to see if she would welcome me in.

She not only did so, but did it with such a sudden breaking up of her
rigidity into the pliancy of a naturally hospitable nature, that my
heart was touched, and I followed her into the great bare apartment,
which must have once answered the purposes of a drawing-room, with very
different feelings from those with which I had been accustomed to look
upon her face in the old attic window.

"I should like to see your sister, too," I said, as she hastily, but
with a certain sort of ceremony, too, pushed forward one of the ancient
chairs which stood at long intervals about the room. "I have not been
your neighbor very long, but I should like to pay my respects to both of
you."

I had purposely spoken with the formal precision she had been accustomed
to in her earlier days, and I could see how perceptibly her self-respect
returned at this echo of the past, giving her a sudden dignity which
made me forget for the moment her neglected appearance.

"I will summon my sister," she returned, disappearing quietly from the
room.

I waited fifteen minutes, then Miss Thankful entered, dressed in her
very best, followed by my first acquaintance in her same gown, but with
a little cap on her head. The cap, despite its faded ribbons carefully
pressed out but with too cold an iron, gave her an old-time fashionable
air which for the moment created the impression that she might have been
a beauty and a belle in her early days, which I afterward discovered to
be true.

It was Miss Thankful, however, who had the personal presence, and it was
she who now expressed their sense of the honor, pushing forward another
chair than that from which I had risen, with the remark:

"Take this, I pray. Many an honored guest has occupied this seat. Let us
see you in it."

I could detect no difference between the one she offered and the one in
which I had just sat, but I at once stepped forward and took the chair
she proffered. She bowed and Miss Charity bowed, and then they seated
themselves side by side on the hair-cloth sofa, which was the only other
article of furniture in the room.

"We are--we are preparing to move," stammered Miss Charity, a faint
flush tingeing her faded cheeks, as she caught the involuntary glance I
had cast about me.

Miss Thankful bridled and gave her sister a look of open rebuke. She
had, as one could instantly see from her strong features and purposeful
ways, been a woman of decide