was going to a tea-meeting in connection with a literary society.
Very grey her face looked. Many of the old beautiful curves were
gone, and mysteries about her dimples and black hair-clusters seemed
departed irrevocably. Still much in her slept safe, untouched as ever,
and, as ever, she was without thoughts. Her memory suggested what she
should say to me. "It will be interesting," she remembered. I helped
her off with coat and furs. She was dressed wonderfully. The gown she
wore--of deep cinnamon and gold--was still the dress of Zenobia, and
at her bosom the strange flower exhaled its mystery. I went in with
her to the hot room. She was evidently a queen here, as in the
forest glades. And her pale face lit up as she moved about among the
"little-worldlings" and exchanged small-talk and cakes and tea. She
was evidently in some way responsible for the entertainment, for the
chairman said "they all owed her so much." I watched her face, it
showed no sign of unusual gratification; had he slighted her, I am
sure she would have listened as equably. What a mask her face was! The
look of graciousness was permanent, and probably only to me did she
betray her continuous sleepiness and lack of interest in the whole
affair. Members propounded stupendously solemn questions about the
"salvation of man," the "state of progress," the mystic meaning of
passages of the Bible, and the like; and I watched her draw on her
memory for answers. She was never at a loss, and her interlocutors
went away, and named their little child-thoughts after her.

I took her away at last and whispered some things in her ears, and
showed her what could be seen of moon and stars from the narrow
street, and something of the old summer feeling came over us. How the
old time sang sorrowfully back, plaintively, piteously. Our steps
sounded along some silent streets, the doors of the little houses were
shut and dark. They might have been the under doors of tombs. Silently
we walked along together, and life sang its little song to us from the
depths of its prison. It sounded like the voice of a lover now lost
for ever, one worth more beyond compare than any that could come
after.

There is no going back. I saw her to her little home and touched her
tenderly at Goodbye.

She went in. The door closed and I was left standing alone in front
of the closed door, and there was none around but myself. Then I was
aware of a gust in the night-breeze blowing up for rain.