he summer night; how sweet the music sounded; how bright the
moonlight was; how she wished we had been there at her party.

"I can't believe I am an old woman. It seems only yesterday," said she,
thoughtfully. And then she lost the idea, and talked about Kate's
great-grandmother, whom she had known, and asked us how she had been
this summer.

She asked us if we would like to go up stairs where she had a fire, and
we eagerly accepted, though we were not in the least cold. Ah, what a
sorry place it was! She had gathered together some few pieces of her old
furniture, which half filled one fine room, and here she lived. There
was a tall, handsome chest of drawers, which I should have liked much to
ransack. Miss Carew had told us that Miss Chauncey had large claims
against the government, dating back sixty or seventy years, but nobody
could ever find the papers; and I felt sure that they must be hidden
away in some secret drawer. The brass handles and trimmings were
blackened, and the wood looked like ebony. I wanted to climb up and look
into the upper part of this antique piece of furniture, and it seemed to
me I could at once put my hand on a package of "papers relating to the
embargo."

On a stand near the window was an old Bible, fairly worn out with
constant use. Miss Chauncey was religious; in fact, it was the only
subject about which she was perfectly sane. We saw almost nothing of her
insanity that day, though afterward she was different. There were days
when her mind seemed clear; but sometimes she was silent, and often she
would confuse Kate with Miss Brandon, and talk to her of long-forgotten
plans and people. She would rarely speak of anything more than a minute
or two, and then would drift into an entirely foreign subject.

She urged us that afternoon to stay to luncheon with her; she said she
could not offer us dinner, but she would give us tea and biscuit, and no
doubt we should find something in Miss Carew's basket, as she was always
kind in remembering her fancies. Miss Honora had told us to decline, if
she asked us to stay; but I should have liked to see her sit at the head
of her table, and to be a guest at such a lunch-party.

Poor creature! it was a blessed thing that her shattered reason made her
unconscious of the change in her fortunes, and incapable of comparing
the end of her life with its beginning. To herself she was still Miss
Chauncey, a gentlewoman of high family, possessed of unusual world