r, and how could she refuse? Unless,
indeed, there were somebody else in the room, to give her courage, and
that was hardly to be expected. Isabel began casting wildly about her
for help. Her thoughts ran in a rushing current, and even in the midst
of her tragic despair some sense of the foolishness of it smote her like
a comic note, and she could have laughed hysterically.

"But I can't help it," she said aloud, "I am afraid. I can't put out the
light. He's seen it. I can't slip out the back door. He'd hear me on the
crust. He'll--ask me--to-night! Oh, he will! he will! and I said to
myself I'd be cunning and never give him a chance. Oh, why couldn't aunt
Luceba have stayed? My soul! my soul!" And then the dramatic fibre,
always awake in her, told her that she had found the tone she sought.

He was blanketing his horse, and Isabel had flown into the sitting-room.
Her face was alive with resolution and a kind of joy. She had thought.
She threw open the chest, with a trembling hand, and pulled out the
black dress.

"I'm sorry," she said, as she slipped it on over her head, and speaking
as if she addressed some unseen guardian, "but I can't help it. If you
don't want your things used, you keep him from coming in!"

The parson knocked at the door. Isabel took no notice. She was putting
on the false front, the horn spectacles, the cashmere shawl, and the
leghorn bonnet, with its long veil. She threw back the veil, and closed
the chest. The parson knocked again. She heard him kicking the snow from
his feet against the scraper. It might have betokened a decent care for
her floors. It sounded to Isabel like a lover's haste, and smote her
anew with that fear which is the forerunner of action. She blew out the
lamp, and lighted a candle. Then she went to the door, schooling herself
in desperation to remember this, to remember that, to remember, above
all things, that her under dress was red and that her upper one had no
back breadth. She threw open the door.

"Good-evening"--said the parson. He was about to add "Miss Isabel," but
the words stuck in his throat.

"She ain't to home," answered Isabel. "My niece ain't to home."

The parson had bent forward, and was eyeing her curiously, yet with
benevolence. He knew all the residents within a large radius, and he
expected, at another word from the shadowy masker, to recognize her
also. "Will she be away long?" he hesitated.

"I guess she will," answered Isabel promptly. "She