books that’s stored away in the west chamber closet next to Miss Katharine’s room, and I set a trap there, but it was older ’n the ten commandments, that trap was, and the spring’s rusty.  I guess you’d better get some new ones and set round in different places, ’less the mice’ll pester you.  There ain’t been no chance for ’em to get much of a living ’long through the winter, but they’ll be sure to come back quick as they find there’s likely to be good board.  I see your aunt’s cat setting out on the front steps.  She never was no great of a mouser, but it went to my heart to see how pleased she looks!  Come right back, didn’t she?  How they do hold to their old haunts!”

“Was that Miss Brandon’s cat?” I asked, with great interest.  “She has been up stairs with us, but I supposed she belonged to some neighbor, and had strayed in.  She behaved as if she felt at home, poor old pussy!”

“We must keep her here,” said Kate.

“Mis’ Dockum took her after your mother went off, and Miss Katharine’s maids,” said Mrs. Patton; “but she told me that it was a long spell before she seemed to feel contented.  She used to set on the steps and cry by the hour together, and try to get in, to first one door and then another.  I used to think how bad Miss Katharine would feel; she set a great deal by a cat, and she took notice of this as long as she did of anything.  Her mind failed her, you know.  Great loss to Deephaven, she was.  Proud woman, and some folks were scared of her; but I always got along with her, and I wouldn’t ask for no kinder friend nor neighbor.  I’ve had my troubles, and I’ve seen the day I was suffering poor, and I couldn’t have brought myself to ask town help nohow, but I wish ye’d ha’ heared her scold me when she found it out; and she come marching into my kitchen one morning, like a grenadier, and says she, ’Why didn’t you send and tell me how sick and poor you are?’ says she.  And she said she’d ha’ been so glad to help me all along, but she thought I had means,—­everybody did; and I see the tears in her eyes, but she was scolding me and speaking as if she was dreadful mad.  She made me comfortable, and she sent over one o’ her maids to see to me, and got the doctor, and a load o’ stuff come up from the store, so I didn’t have to buy anything for a good many weeks.  I got better and so’s to work, but she never’d let me say nothing about it.  I had a good deal o’ trouble, and I thought I’d lost my health, but I hadn’t, and that was thirty or forty years ago.  There never was nothing going on at the great house that she didn’t have me over, sewing or cleaning or company; and I got so that I knew how she liked to have things done.  I felt as if it was my own sister, though I never had one, when I was going over to help lay her out.  She used to talk as free to me as she would to Miss Lorimer or Miss Carew.  I s’pose ye ain’t seen nothing o’ them yet?  She was a good Christian woman, Miss Katharine was.  ’The memory of the just