in
company of an evening, and once when I was here one of her old friends
asked for a tune, and she laughingly said that her day was over and her
fingers were stiff; though I believe she might have played as well as
ever then, if she had cared to try. But once in a while when she had
been quiet all day and rather sad--I am ashamed that I used to think she
was cross--she would open the piano and sit there until late, while I
used to be enchanted by her memories of dancing-tunes, and old psalms,
and marches and songs. There was one tune which I am sure had a history:
there was a sweet wild cadence in it, and she would come back to it
again and again, always going through with it in the same measured way.
I have remembered so many things about my aunt since I have been here,"
said Kate, "which I hardly noticed and did not understand when they
happened. I was afraid of her when I was a little girl, but I think if
I had grown up sooner, I should have enjoyed her heartily. It never used
to occur to me that she had a spark of tenderness or of sentiment, until
just before she was ill, but I have been growing more fond of her ever
since. I might have given her a great deal more pleasure. It was not
long after I was through school that she became so feeble, and of course
she liked best having mamma come to see her; one of us had to be at
home. I have thought lately how careful one ought to be, to be kind and
thoughtful to one's old friends. It is so soon too late to be good to
them, and then one is always so sorry."

I must tell you more of Mrs. Patton; of course it was not long before we
returned her call, and we were much entertained; we always liked to see
our friends in their own houses. Her house was a little way down the
road, unpainted and gambrel-roofed, but so low that the old lilac-bushes
which clustered round it were as tall as the eaves. The Widow Jim (as
nearly every one called her in distinction to the widow Jack Patton, who
was a tailoress and lived at the other end of the town) was a very
useful person. I suppose there must be her counterpart in all old New
England villages. She sewed, and she made elaborate rugs, and she had a
decided talent for making carpets,--if there were one to be made, which
must have happened seldom. But there were a great many to be turned and
made over in Deephaven, and she went to the Carews' and Lorimers' at
house-cleaning time or in seasons of great festivity. She had no equal
in sick