’em at no such price as that.  I went an’ dealt with the selec’men, an’ made ’em promise to find their firewood an’ some other things extra.  They was glad to get rid o’ the matter the fourth time I went, an’ would ha’ promised ’most anything.  But Mr. Janes don’t keep me half the time in oven-wood, he’s off so much, an’ we was cramped o’ room, any way.  I have to store things up garrit a good deal, an’ that keeps me trampin’ right through their room.  I do the best for ’em I can, Mis’ Trimble, but ’t ain’t so easy for me as ’t is for you, with all your means to do with.”

The poor woman looked pinched and miserable herself, though it was evident that she had no gift at house or home keeping.  Mrs. Trimble’s heart was wrung with pain, as she thought of the unwelcome inmates of such a place; but she held her peace bravely, while Miss Rebecca again gave some brief information in regard to the installation.

“You go right up them back stairs,” the hostess directed at last.  “I’m glad some o’ you church folks has seen fit to come an’ visit ’em.  There ain’t been nobody here this long spell, an’ they’ve aged a sight since they come.  They always send down a taste out of your baskets, Mis’ Trimble, an’ I relish it, I tell you.  I’ll shut the door after you, if you don’t object.  I feel every draught o’ cold air.”

“I’ve always heard she was a great hand to make a poor mouth.  Wa’n’t she from somewheres up Parsley way?” whispered Miss Rebecca, as they stumbled in the half-light.

“Poor meechin’ body, wherever she come from,” replied Mrs. Trimble, as she knocked at the door.

There was silence for a moment after this unusual sound; then one of the Bray sisters opened the door.  The eager guests stared into a small, low room, brown with age, and gray, too, as if former dust and cobwebs could not be made wholly to disappear.  The two elderly women who stood there looked like captives.  Their withered faces wore a look of apprehension, and the room itself was more bare and plain than was fitting to their evident refinement of character and self-respect.  There was an uncovered small table in the middle of the floor, with some crackers on a plate; and, for some reason or other, this added a great deal to the general desolation.

But Miss Ann Bray, the elder sister, who carried her right arm in a sling, with piteously drooping fingers, gazed at the visitors with radiant joy.  She had not seen them arrive.

The one window gave only the view at the back of the house, across the fields, and their coming was indeed a surprise.  The next minute she was laughing and crying together.  “Oh, sister!” she said, “if here ain’t our dear Mis’ Trimble!—­an’ my heart o’ goodness, ’tis ’Becca Wright, too!  What dear good creatur’s you be!  I’ve felt all day as if something good was goin’ to happen, an’ was just sayin’ to myself ’twas most sundown now, but I wouldn’t let on to Mandany I’d give up hope quite yet.  You see, the scissors stuck in the floor this very mornin’ an’ it’s always a reliable sign.  There, I’ve got to kiss ye both again!”