establishment the
place could boast. It rather surprised him that the lean old woman
should have been purchasing new apparel there, but there was nothing to
be done but tell the boy to put out the contents of the box and be gone.
Accordingly, upon a large chair the boy laid a white gown of delicate
material, and went away.

Trenholme stood contemplating the gown; he even touched it lightly with
his hand, so surprised he was. He soon concluded there was some
mistake, and afterwards, when he heard the housekeeper enter the kitchen
from the garden door, he was interested enough to get up with alacrity
and call to her. "A gown has come for you, Mrs. Martha," he cried. Now,
he thought, the mistake would be proved; but she only came in soberly,
and took up the gown as if it was an expected thing. He bade her
good-night. "Good-night," said she, looking at him. There was a red spot
on each of her thin, withered cheeks. He heard her footstep mounting her
bedroom staircase, but no clue to the mystery of her purchase offered
itself to mitigate his surprise. Had she not been his housekeeper now
for six years, and during that time not so much as a trace of any vagary
of mind had he observed in her.

About an hour afterwards, when he had gone into the next room to look
for some papers, he heard quiet sounds going on in the kitchen, which
was just at the rear end of the small hall on which the room doors
opened. A moment more and he surmised that his housekeeper must have
again descended for something. "Are you there, Mrs. Martha?" he called.
There was no answer in words, but hearing the kitchen door open, he
looked into the lobby, and there a strange vision flashed on his sight.
His end of the lobby was dark, but in the kitchen doorway, by the light
of the candles she held, he saw his elderly housekeeper arrayed in the
pure white gown.

He paused in sheer astonishment, looking at her, and he observed she
trembled--trembled all over with the meek courage it cost her to thus
exhibit herself; for she appeared to have opened the door for no other
purpose than to let him see her. She said nothing, and he--most men are
cowards with regard to women--he had a vague sense that it was his duty
to ask her why she wore that dress, but he did not do it. He had no
reason to suppose her mad; she had a perfect right to array herself in
full dress at night if she chose; she was a great deal older than he, a
woman worthy of all respect. This was th