iron door leading into the yard. A gust of
cold wind smote her as she stepped out and groped shiveringly under the
clothes-lines.

That morning at three o'clock an alarm of fire brought the engines to
Mrs. Black's door, and also brought Mrs. Sampson's startled boarders to
their windows. The wooden balcony at the back of Mrs. Black's house was
ablaze, and among those who watched the progress of the flames was Mrs.
Manstey, leaning in her thin dressing-gown from the open window.

The fire, however, was soon put out, and the frightened occupants of the
house, who had fled in scant attire, reassembled at dawn to find that
little mischief had been done beyond the cracking of window panes and
smoking of ceilings. In fact, the chief sufferer by the fire was Mrs.
Manstey, who was found in the morning gasping with pneumonia, a not
unnatural result, as everyone remarked, of her having hung out of an
open window at her age in a dressing-gown. It was easy to see that she
was very ill, but no one had guessed how grave the doctor's verdict
would be, and the faces gathered that evening about Mrs. Sampson's table
were awestruck and disturbed. Not that any of the boarders knew Mrs.
Manstey well; she "kept to herself," as they said, and seemed to fancy
herself too good for them; but then it is always disagreeable to have
anyone dying in the house and, as one lady observed to another: "It
might just as well have been you or me, my dear."

But it was only Mrs. Manstey; and she was dying, as she had lived,
lonely if not alone. The doctor had sent a trained nurse, and Mrs.
Sampson, with muffled step, came in from time to time; but both, to Mrs.
Manstey, seemed remote and unsubstantial as the figures in a dream. All
day she said nothing; but when she was asked for her daughter's address
she shook her head. At times the nurse noticed that she seemed to be
listening attentively for some sound which did not come; then again she
dozed.

The next morning at daylight she was very low. The nurse called Mrs.
Sampson and as the two bent over the old woman they saw her lips move.

"Lift me up--out of bed," she whispered.

They raised her in their arms, and with her stiff hand she pointed to
the window.

"Oh, the window--she wants to sit in the window. She used to sit there
all day," Mrs. Sampson explained. "It can do her no harm, I suppose?"

"Nothing matters now," said the nurse.

They carried Mrs. Manstey to the window and placed her in her