She was a tall thin old lady with bright eyes and grey hair and a face that was still pretty in spite of sunken eyes and sunken cheeks and wrinkled brow.

There was ever present with her an air of melancholy which told a whole tale of the sadness of a long life.

Her chief excitement was in her two visits to church on Sunday and in the letter which she wrote every week to her nephew at Dillsborough.

Now she had her young friend with her, and that too was an excitement to her,--and the more so since she had heard the tidings of Larry Twentyman's courtship.
She made up her mind that she would not speak on the subject to her young friend unless her young friend should speak to her.

In the first three weeks nothing was said; but four or five days before Mary's departure there came up a conversation about Dillsborough and Bragton.