quite shut it out, till she resorted to
sweeping inner curtains.

Mrs. Cairnes did her own work, because, as she said, then she knew it
was done. She had refused the company of various individuals, because,
as she said again, she wouldn't give them house-room. Perhaps it was for
the same reason that she had refused several offers of marriage;
although the only reason that she gave was that one was quite enough,
and she didn't want any boots bringing in mud for her to wipe up. But
the fact was that Captain Cairnes had been a mistake; and his relict
never allowed herself to dwell upon the fact of her loss, but she felt
herself obliged to say with too much feeling that all was for the best;
and she dared not risk the experiment again.

Mrs. Cairnes, however, might have been lonelier if she had been very
much at home; but she was President of the First Charitable, and
Secretary of the Second, and belonged to a reading-club, and a
sewing-circle, and a bible-class, and had every case of illness in town
more or less to oversee, and the circulation of the news to attend to,
and so she was away from home a good deal, and took many teas out. Some
people thought that if she hadn't to feed her cat she never would go
home. But the cat was all she had, she used to say, and nobody knew the
comfort it was to her. Yet, for all this, there were hours and seasons
when, obliged to stay in the house, it was intolerably dreary there, and
she longed for companionship. "Some one with an interest," she said.
"Some one who loves the same things that I do, who cares for me, and for
my pursuits. Some one like Sophia Maybury. Oh! how I should have liked
to spend my last days with Sophia! What keeps Dr. Maybury alive so, I
can't imagine. If he had only--gone to his rest"--said the good woman,
"Sophia and I could join our forces and live together in clover. And how
we should enjoy it! We could talk together, read together, sew together.
No more long, dull evenings and lonely nights listening to the mice. But
a friend, a dear sister, constantly at hand! Sophia was the gentlest
young woman, the prettiest,--oh, how I loved her in those days! She was
a part of my youth. I love her just as much now. I wish she could come
and live here. She might, if there weren't any Dr. Maybury. I can't
stand this solitude. Why did fate make me such a social old body, and
then set me here all alone?"

If Sophia was the prettiest young woman in those days, she was an