sorrow, and whom simple men could
not understand! It was generally agreed that the parish was well rid of
him.

"He was a genius," said the people in commiseration. The word was an
uncomplimentary epithet with them.

When the Hanscoms moved in the house which had been the old rectory,
they gave Grandma Hanscom the room with the fireplace. Grandma was well
pleased. The roaring fire warmed her heart as well as her chill old
body, and she wept with weak joy when she looked at the larches, because
they reminded her of the house she had lived in when she was first
married. All the forenoon of the first day she was busy putting things
away in bureau drawers and closets, but by afternoon she was ready to
sit down in her high-backed rocker and enjoy the comforts of her room.

She nodded a bit before the fire, as she usually did after luncheon, and
then she awoke with an awful start and sat staring before her with such
a look in her gentle, filmy old eyes as had never been there before.
She did not move, except to rock slightly, and the Thought grew and grew
till her face was disguised as by some hideous mask of tragedy.

By and by the children came pounding at the door.

"Oh, grandma, let us in, please. We want to see your new room, and mamma
gave us some ginger cookies on a plate, and we want to give some to
you."

The door gave way under their assaults, and the three little ones stood
peeping in, waiting for permission to enter. But it did not seem to be
their grandma--their own dear grandma--who arose and tottered toward
them in fierce haste, crying:

"Away, away! Out of my sight! Out of my sight before I do the thing I
want to do! Such a terrible thing! Send some one to me quick, children,
children! Send some one quick!"

They fled with feet shod with fear, and their mother came, and Grandma
Hanscom sank down and clung about her skirts and sobbed:

"Tie me, Miranda. Make me fast to the bed or the wall. Get some one to
watch me. For I want to do an awful thing!"

They put the trembling old creature in bed, and she raved there all
the night long and cried out to be held, and to be kept from doing the
fearful thing, whatever it was--for she never said what it was.

The next morning some one suggested taking her in the sitting-room
where she would be with the family. So they laid her on the sofa, hemmed
around with cushions, and before long she was her quiet self again,
though exhausted, naturally, with the tumult