yes, black ones with depths of malignant
reserve, behind a broad meaning of ill will; she saw instead of her
firm, benevolent mouth one with a hard, thin line, a network of
melancholic wrinkles. She saw instead of her own face, middle-aged and
good to see, the expression of a life of honesty and good will to
others and patience under trials, the face of a very old woman scowling
forever with unceasing hatred and misery at herself and all others, at
life, and death, at that which had been and that which was to come.
She saw instead of her own face in the glass, the face of her dead Aunt
Harriet, topping her own shoulders in her own well-known dress!

Sophia Gill left the room. She went into the one which she shared with
her sister Amanda. Amanda looked up and saw her standing there. She
had set the lamp on a table, and she stood holding a handkerchief over
her face. Amanda looked at her with terror.

"What is it? What is it, Sophia?" she gasped.

Sophia still stood with the handkerchief pressed to her face.

"Oh, Sophia, let me call somebody. Is your face hurt? Sophia, what is
the matter with your face?" fairly shrieked Amanda.

Suddenly Sophia took the handkerchief from her face.

"Look at me, Amanda Gill," she said in an awful voice.

Amanda looked, shrinking.

"What is it? Oh, what is it? You don't look hurt. What is it,
Sophia?"

"What do you see?"

"Why, I see you."

"Me?"

"Yes, you. What did you think I would see?"

Sophia Gill looked at her sister. "Never as long as I live will I tell
you what I thought you would see, and you must never ask me," said she.

"Well, I never will, Sophia," replied Amanda, half weeping with terror.

"You won't try to sleep in that room again, Sophia?"

"No," said Sophia; "and I am going to sell this house."

THE VACANT LOT

When it became generally known in Townsend Centre that the Townsends
were going to move to the city, there was great excitement and dismay.
For the Townsends to move was about equivalent to the town's moving.
The Townsend ancestors had founded the village a hundred years ago.
The first Townsend had kept a wayside hostelry for man and beast, known
as the "Sign of the Leopard." The sign-board, on which the leopard was
painted a bright blue, was still extant, and prominently so, being
nailed over the present Townsend's front door. This Townsend, by name
David, kept the village store. There had been no tavern since the
rai