esire for visitors," said Miss Dane. She spoke in a hollow,
inward monotone, which somehow gave the impression that she was in the
habit of talking to herself, or to something that made no response. "My
soul is fit company for me."

"I should think it might be!" said Mrs. Tree.

"Besides, I am surrounded by the Blessed," Miss Dane went on. "This room
probably appears bare and gloomy to your eyes, Marcia, but I see it
peopled by the Blessed, in troops, crowding about me, robed and
crowned."

"I hope they enjoy themselves," said Mrs. Tree. "I will not interrupt
you or them more than a few minutes, Virginia. I want to ask if you have
made your will. A singular question, but I have my reasons for asking."

"Certainly I have; years ago."

"Have you left anything to Mary Jaquith--Mary Ashton?"

"No!" A spark crept into the dim gray eyes.

"So I supposed. Did you know that she was poor, and blind?"

There was a pause.

"I did not know that she was blind," Miss Dane said, presently. "For her
poverty, she has herself to thank."

"Yes! she married the man she loved. It was a crime, I suppose. You
would have had her live on here with you all her days, and turn to stone
slowly."

"I brought Mary Ashton up as my own child," Miss Dane went on; and there
was an echo of some past emotion in her deathly voice. "She chose to
follow her own way, in defiance of my wishes, of my judgment. She sowed
the wind, and she has reaped the whirlwind. We are as far apart as the
dead and the living."

"Just about!" said Mrs. Tree. "Now, Virginia Dane, listen to me! I have
come here to make a proposal, and when I have made it I shall go away,
and that is the last you will see of me in this world, or most likely in
the next. Mary Ashton married a scamp, as other women have done and will
do to the end of the chapter. She paid for her mistake, poor child, and
no one has ever heard a word of complaint or repining from her. She got
along--somehow; and now her boy, Will, has come home, and means to be a
good son, and will be one, too, and see her comfortable the rest of her
days. But--Will wants to marry. He is engaged to Andrew Bent's daughter,
a sweet, pretty girl, born and grown up while you have been sitting here
in your coffin, Virginia Dane. Now--they won't take any more help from
me, and I like 'em for it; and yet I want them to have more to do with.
Will is clerk in the post-office, and his salary would give the three of
them skim milk