He went toward her with a little flourish of words, but the old lady ignored him entirely.  She held up her chin with a kind of ancient pertness, and eyed Mrs. Field.  She was a small, straight-backed woman, full of nervous vibrations.  She stood apparently still, but her black silk whispered all the time, and loose ends of black ribbon trembled.  The black silk had an air of old gentility about it, but it was very shiny; there were many bows, but the ribbons were limp, having been pressed and dyed.  Her face, yellow and deeply wrinkled, but sharply vivacious, was overtopped by a bunch of purple flowers in a nest of rusty black lace and velvet.

So far Mrs. Field had maintained a certain strained composure, but now her long, stern face began flushing beneath this old lady’s gaze.

“I conclude you know this lady,” said the lawyer, with a blandly facetious air to the new-comer.

At that she stepped forward promptly, with a jerk as if to throw off her irresolution, and a certain consternation.  “Yes, I s’pose I do,” said she, in a voice like a shrill high chirp.  “It’s Mis’ Maxwell, ain’t it—­Edward’s wife?  How do you do, Esther?  I hadn’t seen you for so long, I wasn’t quite sure, but I see who you are now.  How do you do?”

“I’m pretty well, thank you,” said Mrs. Field, with a struggle, putting her twisted hand into the other woman’s, extended quiveringly in a rusty black glove.

“When did you come to town, Esther?”

“Jest now.”

“Let me see, where from?  I can’t seem to remember the name of the place where you’ve been livin’.  I know it, too.”

“Green River.”

“Oh, yes, Green River.  Well, I’m glad to see you, Esther.  You ain’t changed much, come to look at you; not so much as I have, I s’pose.  I don’t expect you’d know me, would you?”

“I—­don’t know as I would.”  Mrs. Field recoiled from a lie even in the midst of falsehood.

The old lady’s face contracted a little, but she could spring above her emotions.  “Well, I don’t s’pose you would, either,” responded she, with fine alacrity.  “I’ve grown old and wrinkled and yellow, though I ain’t gray,” with a swift glance at Mrs. Field’s smooth curves of white hair.  “You turned gray pretty young, didn’t you, Esther?”

“Yes, I did.”

The old lady’s front hair hung in dark-brown spirals, a little bunch of them against either cheek, outside her bonnet.  She set them dancing with a little dip of her head when she spoke again.  “I thought you did,” said she.  “Well, you’re comin’ over to my house, ain’t you, Esther?  You’ll find a good many changes there.  My daughter Flora and I are all that’s left now, you know, I s’pose.”

Mrs. Field moved her head uncertainly.  This old woman, with her straight demands for truth or falsehood, was torture to her.

“I suppose you’ll come right over with me pretty soon,” the old lady went on.  “I don’t want to hurry you in your business with Mr. Tuxbury, but I suppose my nephew will be home, and—­”