sitting by the western window of the kitchen,
mending Mr. Haydon's second-best black coat, when she looked down the
lane and saw old Polly Norris approaching the house. Polly was an
improvident mother of improvident children, not always quite sound in
either wits or behavior, but she had always been gently dealt with by
the Haydons, and, as it happened, was also an old acquaintance of
Maria Durrant's own. Maria gave a little groan at the sight of her:
she did not feel just then like listening to long tales or responding
to troublesome demands. She nodded kindly to the foolish old creature,
who presently came wheezing and lamenting into the clean sunshiny
kitchen, and dropped herself like an armful of old clothes into the
nearest chair.

Maria rose and put by her work; she was half glad, after all, to have
company; and Polly Norris was not without certain powers of
good-fellowship and entertaining speech.

"I expect this may be the last time I can get so fur," she announced.
"'T is just 'bout a year sence we was all to Mis' Haydon's funeral. I
didn't know but that was the last time. Well, I do' know but it's so I
can accept that piece o' pie. I've come fur, an' my strength's but
small. How's William's folks?"

"They're smart," answered Maria, seating herself to her work again,
after the expedition to the pantry.

"I tell ye this is beautiful pie," said the guest, looking up, after a
brief and busy silence; "a real comfortable help o' pie, after such a
walk, feeble as I be. I've failed a sight sence you see me before, now
ain't I?"

"I don't know's I see any change to speak of," said Maria, bending
over the coat.

"Lord bless you, an' Heaven too! I ain't eat no such pie as this sence
I was a girl. Your rule, was it, or poor Mis' Haydon's?"

"I've always made my pies that same way," said Maria soberly. "I'm
pleased you should enjoy it."

"I expect my walk give me an extry appetite. I can walk like a bird,
now, I tell ye; last summer I went eleven miles, an' ag'in nine miles.
You just ought to see me on the road, an' here I be, goin' on
seventy-seven year old. There ain't so many places to go to as there
used to be. I've known a sight o' nice kind folks that's all gone.
It's re'lly sad how folks is goin'. There's all Mis' Nash's folks
passed away; the old doctor, an' the little grandgirl, an' Mis' Nash
that was like a mother to me, an' always had some thin' to give me;
an' down to Glover's Corner they're all gone