n flaps for covers opening from the middle and with a spring
in them somewhere so that they fly shut with a snap. Out of this she
takes a bowl of chicken broth, a jar of ambrosial jelly, a cake of
delectable honey and a bottle of celestial raspberry shrub. If the
patient will only eat, he will immediately rise up and walk. Or if he
dies, it is a pleasant sort of death. I have myself thought on several
occasions of being taken with a brief fit of sickness.

In telling all these things about Miss Aiken, which seem to describe
her, I have told only the commonplace, the expected or predictable
details. Often and often I pause when I see an interesting man or woman
and ask myself: "How, after all, does this person live?" For we all
know it is not chiefly by the clothes we wear or the house we occupy or
the friends we touch. There is something deeper, more secret, which
furnishes the real motive and character of our lives. What a triumph,
then, is every fine old man! To have come out of a long life with a
spirit still sunny, is not that an heroic accomplishment?

Of the real life of our friend I know only one thing; but that thing is
precious to me, for it gives me a glimpse of the far dim Alps that rise
out of the Plains of Contentment. It is nothing very definite--such
things never are; and yet I like to think of it when I see her treading
the useful round of her simple life. As I said, she has lived here in
this neighbourhood--oh, sixty years. The country knew her father before
her. Out of that past, through the dimming eyes of some of the old
inhabitants, I have had glimpses of the sprightly girlhood which our
friend must have enjoyed. There is even a confused story of a wooer (how
people try to account for every old maid!)--a long time ago--who came
and went away again. No one remembers much about him--such things are
not important, of course, after so many years----

But I must get to _the_ thing I treasure. One day Harriet called at the
little house. It was in summer and the door stood open; she presumed on
the privilege of friendship and walked straight in. There she saw,
sitting at the table, her head on her arm in a curious girlish abandon
unlike the prim Miss Aiken we knew so well, our Old Maid. When she heard
Harriet's step she started up with breath quickly indrawn. There were
tears in her eyes. Something in her hand she concealed in the folds of
her skirt then impulsively--unlike her, too--she threw an arm arou