urried
away from it that he might have it to himself. Everything was very
simple: the iron forks had two prongs; the knives bone handles; the dull
glass was pressed; the heavy plates and cups were white, but so was the
cloth, and all were clean. The woman brought in a good boiled dinner
of corned-beef, potatoes, turnips, and carrots from the kitchen, and a
teapot, and said something about having kept them hot on the stove for
him; she brought him a plate of biscuit fresh from the oven; then she
said to the boy, "You come out and have your dinner with me, Jeff," and
left the guest to make his meal unmolested.

The room was square, with two north windows that looked down the lane he
had climbed to the house. An open door led into the kitchen in an
ell, and a closed door opposite probably gave access to a parlor or a
ground-floor chamber. The windows were darkened down to the lower sash
by green paper shades; the walls were papered in a pattern of brown
roses; over the chimney hung a large picture, a life-size pencil-drawing
of two little girls, one slightly older and slightly larger than the
other, each with round eyes and precise ringlets, and with her hand
clasped in the other's hand.

The guest seemed helpless to take his gaze from it, and he sat fallen
back in his chair at it when the woman came in with a pie.

"Thank you, I believe I don't want any dessert," he said. "The fact is,
the dinner was so good that I haven't left any room for pie. Are those
your children?"

"Yes," said the woman, looking up at the picture with the pie in her
hand. "They're the last two I lost."

"Oh, excuse me--" the guest began.

"It's the way they appear in the spirit life. It's a spirit picture."

"Oh, I thought there was something strange about it."

"Well, it's a good deal like the photograph we had taken about a year
before they died. It's a good likeness. They say they don't change a
great deal at first."

She seemed to refer the point to him for his judgment, but he answered
wide of it:

"I came up here to paint your mountain, if you don't mind, Mrs.
Durgin-Lion's Head, I mean."

"Oh yes. Well, I don't know as we could stop you if you wanted to take
it away." A spare glimmer lighted up her face.

The painter rejoined in kind: "The town might have something to say, I
suppose."

"Not if you was to leave a good piece of intervale in place of it. We've
got mountains to spare."

"Well, then, that's arranged. What about