rancis when he was a little boy, Esther?"

"No, I guess I don't."

"Why, I should think you'd be likely to. He lived with me when you
was here. He came right after his father died, an' that was before
you came here. He was quite a big boy. I should think you'd remember
him. You sure you don't, Esther?"

"Yes, I guess I don't."

"Seems to me it's dreadful queer; I guess your memory ain't as good
as mine. I s'pose you're beginnin' to feel kind of wonted here,
Esther? It's a pretty big house, but then it ain't as if you hadn't
been here before. I s'pose it seems kind of familiar to you, if you
ain't seen it for so long; I s'pose it all comes back to you, don't
it?"

There was a pause. "No, I'm afraid it don't," said Mrs. Field her
pale severe face fronting the other woman. Although fairly started
forth in the slough of deceit, she still held up her Puritan skirts
arduously.

"It's kind of queer it don't, ain't it?" returned Mrs. Maxwell. "The
house ain't been altered any, an' the furniture's jest the same.
Thomas, he wouldn't have a thing altered; the carpet in his bedroom
is wore threadbare, but he wouldn't get a new one nohow. Mis' Jay,
she wanted him to get a new cookin'-stove, but he wouldn't hear to
it; much as ever he'd let her have a new broom. And it wa'n't because
he was stingy; it was jest because he was kind of set, an' had got
into the way of thinkin' nothin' had ought to be changed. It wa'n't
never my way; I never believed in hangin' on to old shackly things
because you've always had 'em. There ain't no use tryin' to set down
tables an' chairs as solid as the everlastin' hills. There was Mis'
Perry, she that was buried this afternoon, Mr. Perry's mother, when
she came here to live after her husband died, she sold off every
stick of her old furniture, an' got the handsomest marble-top set
that money could buy for her room. She got some pictures in gilt
frames too, and a tapestry carpet, and vases and images for her
mantel-shelf. She said folks could talk about associations all they
wanted to, she hadn't no associations with a lot of old worm-eaten
furniture; she'd rather have some that was clean an' new. H'm,
anybody to hear folks talk sometimes would think they were
blood-relations to old secretaries and bureaus."

Mrs. Maxwell screwed her face contemptuously, as if the talking folk
were before her, and there was a pause. The young man looked across
at Lois, then turned to her mother, as if about to