lt. It was all very peaceful and comfortable, but it was very
lonely. By her side, on a light-stand, lay the religious newspaper of
her denomination, and a pair of spectacles whose jointed silver bows
looked like a funny two-legged beetle cast helplessly upon its back.

"New Year's Day again," said old Cynthia Dallett. Time had left nobody
in her house to wish her a Happy New Year,--she was the last one left
in the old nest. "I 'm gittin' to be very old," she said for the
second time; it seemed to be all there was to say.

She was keeping a careful eye on her friendly clock, but it was hardly
past the middle of the morning, and there was no excuse for moving; it
was the long hour between the end of her slow morning work and the
appointed time for beginning to get dinner. She was so stiff and lame
that this hour's rest was usually most welcome, but to-day she sat as
if it were Sunday, and did not take up her old shallow splint basket of
braiding-rags from the side of her footstool.

"I do hope Abby Pendexter 'll make out to git up to see me this
afternoon as usual," she continued. "I know 't ain't so easy for her
to get up the hill as it used to be, but I do seem to want to see some
o' my own folks. I wish 't I 'd thought to send her word I expected
her when Jabez Hooper went back after he came up here with the flour.
I 'd like to have had her come prepared to stop two or three days."

A little chickadee perched on the window-sill outside and bobbed his
head sideways to look in, and then pecked impatiently at the glass.
The old woman laughed at him with childish pleasure and felt
companioned; it was pleasant at that moment to see the life in even a
bird's bright eye.

"Sign of a stranger," she said, as he whisked his wings and flew away
in a hurry. "I must throw out some crumbs for 'em; it's getting to be
hard pickin' for the stayin'-birds." She looked past the trees of her
little orchard now with seeing eyes, and followed the long forest
slopes that led downward to the lowland country. She could see the two
white steeples of Fairfield Village, and the map of fields and pastures
along the valley beyond, and the great hills across the valley to the
westward. The scattered houses looked like toys that had been
scattered by children. She knew their lights by night, and watched the
smoke of their chimneys by day. Far to the northward were higher
mountains, and these were already white with snow. Winter was