ly
advantages. The remembrance of her cruel trials and sorrows had faded
from her mind. She had no idea of the poverty of her surroundings when
she paced back and forth, with stately steps, on the ruined terraces of
her garden; the ranks of lilies and the conserve-roses were still in
bloom for her, and the box-borders were as trimly kept as ever; and when
she pointed out to us the distant steeples of Riverport, it was plain to
see that it was still the Riverport of her girlhood. If the boat-landing
at the foot of the garden had long ago dropped into the river and gone
out with the tide; if the maids and men who used to do her bidding were
all out of hearing; if there had been no dinner company that day and no
guests were expected for the evening,--what did it matter? The twilight
had closed around her gradually, and she was alone in her house, but she
did not heed the ruin of it or the absence of her friends. On the
morrow, life would again go on.

We always used to ask her to read the Bible to us, after Mr. Lorimer had
told us how grand and beautiful it was to listen to her. I shall never
hear some of the Psalms or some chapters of Isaiah again without being
reminded of her; and I remember just now, as I write, one summer
afternoon when Kate and I had lingered later than usual, and we sat in
the upper room looking out on the river and the shore beyond, where the
light had begun to grow golden as the day drew near sunset. Miss Sally
had opened the great book at random and read slowly, "In my Father's
house are many mansions"; and then, looking off for a moment at a leaf
which had drifted into the window-recess, she repeated it: "In my
Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told
you." Then she went on slowly to the end of the chapter, and with her
hands clasped together on the Bible she fell into a reverie, and the
tears came into our eyes as we watched her look of perfect content.
Through all her clouded years the promises of God had been her only
certainty.

Miss Chauncey died early in the winter after we left Deephaven, and one
day when I was visiting Kate in Boston Mr. Lorimer came to see us, and
told us about her.

It seems that after much persuasion she was induced to go to spend the
winter with a neighbor, her house having become uninhabitable, and she
was, beside, too feeble to live alone. But her fondness for her old home
was too strong, and one day she stole away from the people wh