Back of the trees the house loomed up.  It was white and bulky, with fluted cornices and corner posts, and a pillared porch to the front door.  Mrs. Field passed between the two outstanding pillars, which reared themselves whitely over her, like ghostly sentries, and stood waiting while Mr. Tuxbury fitted the key to the lock.

It took quite a little time; he could not see very well, he had forgotten his spectacles in his impatient departure.  But at last he jerked open the door, and a strange conglomerate odor, the very breath of the life of the old Maxwell house, steamed out in their faces.

All bridal and funeral feasts, all daily food, all garments which had hung in the closets and rustled through the rooms, every piece of furniture, every carpet and hanging had a part in it.

The rank and bitter emanations of life, as well as spices and sweet herbs and delicate perfumes, went to make up the breath which smote one in the face upon the opening of the door.  Still it was not a disagreeable, but rather a suggestive and poetical odor, which should affect one like a reminiscent dream.  However, the village people sniffed at it, and said “How musty that old house is!”

That was what Daniel Tuxbury said now.  “The house is musty,” he remarked, with stately nose in the air.

Mrs. Field made no response.  She stepped inside at once.  “I’m much obliged to you,” said she.

The lawyer looked at her, then past her into the dark depths of the house.  “You can’t see,” said he, “you must let me go in with you and get a light.”  He spoke in a tone of short politeness.  He was in his heart utterly out of patience with this strange, stiff old woman.

“I guess I can find one.  I hate to make you so much trouble.”

Mr. Tuxbury stepped forward with decision, and began fumbling in his pocket for a match.  “Of course you cannot find one in the dark, Mrs. Maxwell,” said he, with open exasperation.

She said nothing more, but stood meekly in the hall until a light flared out from a room on the left.  The lawyer had found a lamp, he was himself somewhat familiar with the surroundings, but on the way to it he stumbled over a chair with an exclamation.  It sounded like an oath to Mrs. Field, but she thought she must be mistaken.  She had never in her life heard many oaths, and when she did had never been able to believe her ears.

“I hope you didn’t hurt you,” said she, deprecatingly, stepping forward.

“I am not hurt, thank you.”  But the twinge in the lawyer’s ankle was confirming his resolution to say nothing more to her on the subject of his regret and unwillingness that she should choose to refuse his hospitality, and spend such a lonely and uncomfortable night.  “I won’t say another word to her about it,” he declared to himself.  So he simply made arrangements with her for a meeting at his office the next morning to attend to the business for which there had been no time to-night, and took his leave.