It seems to me that my older and less sensitive years have never known such a night.  The world was stifling in a deluge of gray, cold mists, unstirred by a breath of air.  A robin with feathers all ruffled, and head hidden, sat on the gate-post, and chirped a little mournful chirp, like a creature dying in a vacuum.  The very daisy that nodded and drooped in the grass at my feet seemed to be gasping for breath.  The neighbor’s house, not forty paces across the street, was invisible.  I remember the sensation it gave me, as I struggled to find its outlines, of a world washed out, like the figures I washed out on my slate.  As I trudged, half frightened, into the road, and the fog closed about me, it seemed to my childish superstition like a horde of long-imprisoned ghosts let loose, and angry.  The distant sound of the coach, which I could not see, added to the fancy.

The coach turned the corner presently.  On a clear day I could see the brass buttons on the driver’s coat at that distance.  There was nothing visible now of the whole dark structure but the two lamps in front, like the eyes of some evil thing, glaring and defiant, borne with swift motion down upon me by a power utterly unseen,—­it had a curious effect.  Even at this time, I confess I do not like to see a lighted carriage driven through a fog.

I summoned all my little courage, and piped out the driver’s name, standing there in the road.

He reined up his horses with a shout,—­he had nearly driven over me.  After some searching, he discovered the small object cowering down in the mist, handed me a letter, with a muttered oath at being intercepted on such a night, and lumbered on and out of sight in three rods.

I went slowly into the house.  Mother had lighted a lamp, and stood at the parlor door.  She did not come into the hall to meet me.

She took the letter and went to the light, holding it with the seal unbroken.  She might have stood so two minutes.

“Why don’t you read, mamma?” spoke up Winthrop.  I hushed him.

She opened it then, read it, laid it down upon the table, and went out of the room without a word.  I had not seen her face.  We heard her go upstairs and shut the door.

She had left the letter open there before us.  After a little awed silence, Clara broke out into sobs.  I went up and read the few and simple lines.

Aunt Alice had left for Creston on the appointed day.

Mother spent that night in the closed room where the lilies had drooped and died.  Clara and I heard her pacing the floor till we cried ourselves to sleep.  When we woke in the morning, she was pacing it still.

Weeks wore into months, and the months became many years.  More than that we never knew.  Some inquiry revealed the fact, after a while, that a slight accident had occurred, upon the Erie Railroad, to the train which she should have taken.  There was some disabling, but no deaths, the conductor had supposed.  The car had fallen into the water.  She might not have been missed when the half-drowned passengers were all drawn out.