he wa'n't dead
and gone, I wouldn't believe one word of such a tomfool story," said
she, with vicious energy. Then she shut the door again.

At dinner Sylvia ate nothing, and did not talk. Neither Henry nor
Horace said much. In the afternoon Horace went out to make some
arrangements which he had taken upon himself with regard to the dead
woman, and presently Henry followed him. Sylvia worked with feverish
energy all the afternoon setting a room in order for her expected
guest. It was a pretty room, with an old-fashioned paper--a sprawling
rose pattern on a tarnished satin ground. The room overlooked the
grove, and green branches pressed close against two windows. There
was a pretty, old-fashioned dressing-table between the front windows,
and Sylvia picked a bunch of flowers and put them in a china vase,
and set it under the glass, and thought of the girl's face which it
would presently reflect.

"I wonder if she looks like her mother," she thought. She stood
gazing at the glass, and shivered as though with cold. Then she
started at a sound of wheels outside. In front of the house was
Leander Willard, who kept the livery-stable of East Westland. He was
descending in shambling fashion over the front wheels, steadying at
the same time a trunk on the front seat; and Horace Allen sprang out
of the back of the carriage and assisted a girl in a flutter of
dark-blue skirts and veil. "She's come!" said Sylvia.

Chapter VIII

Sylvia gave a hurried glance at her hair in the glass. It shone like
satin with a gray-gold lustre, folded back smoothly from her temples.
She eyed with a little surprise the red spots of excitement which
still remained on her cheeks. The changelessness of her elderly
visage had been evident to her so long that she was startled to see
anything else. "I look as if I had been pulled through a knot-hole,"
she muttered.

She took off her gingham apron, thrust it hastily into a bureau
drawer in the next room, and tied on a clean white one with a
hemstitched border. Then she went down-stairs, the starched white bow
of the apron-strings covering her slim back like a Japanese sash. She
heard voices in the south room, and entered with a little cough.
Horace and the new-comer were standing there talking. The moment
Sylvia entered, Horace stepped forward. "I hardly know how to
introduce you," he said; "I hardly know the relationship. But, Mrs.
Whitman, here is Miss Fletcher--Miss Rose Fletcher."

"Who ac