“Cross the track, an’ go up the street till you come to it, on the right-hand side,” he answered.  Then he stared curiously after her as she went on.

Lawyer Tuxbury’s small neat sign was fastened upon the door of the L of a large white house.  There was a green yard, and some newly started flower-beds.  In one there was a clump of yellow daffodils.  Two yellow-haired little girls were playing out in the yard.  They both stood still, staring with large, wary blue eyes at Mrs. Field as she came up the path.  She never glanced toward them.

She stood like a black-draped statue before the office door, and knocked.  Nobody answered.

She knocked again louder.  Then a voice responded “Come in.”  Mrs. Field turned the knob carefully, and opened the door.  It led directly into the room.  There was a dull oil-cloth carpet, some beetling cases of heavy books, a few old arm-chairs, and one battered leather easy-chair.  A great desk stood against the farther wall, and a man was seated at it, with his back toward the door.  He had white hair, to which the sunlight coming through the west window gave a red-gold tinge.

Mrs. Field stood still, just inside the door.  Apart from anything else, the room itself had a certain awe-inspiring quality for her.  She had never before been in a lawyer’s office.  She was fully possessed with the rural and feminine ignorance and holy fear of all legal appurtenances.  From all her traditions, this office door should have displayed a grinning man or woman trap, which she must warily shun.

She eyed the dusty oil-cloth—­the files of black books—­the chairs—­the man at the desk, with his gilded white head.  He wrote on steadily, and never stirred for a minute.  Then he again sang out, sharply, “Come in.”

He was deaf, and had, along with his insensibility to sounds, that occasional abnormal perception of them which the deaf seem sometimes to possess.  He often heard sounds when none were recognizable to other people.

Now, evidently having perceived no result from his first response, he had heard this second knock, which did not exist except in his own supposition and the waiting woman’s intent.  She had, indeed, just at this point said to herself that she would slip out and knock again if he did not look around.  She had not the courage to speak.  It was almost as if the deaf lawyer, piecing out his defective ears with a subtler perception, had actually become aware of her intention, which had thundered upon him like the knock itself.

Mrs. Field made an inarticulate response, and took a grating step forward.  The old man turned suddenly and saw her.  She stood back again; there was a shrinking stiffness about her attitude, but she looked him full in the face.

“Why, good-day!” he exclaimed.  “Good-day, madam.  I didn’t hear you come in.”

Mrs. Field murmured a good-day in return.