ht--it was as lustreless
as a field of snow upon a dark day. That done, she stood there,
staring at herself in the mirror, and living over, remorselessly, the
one day that, like a lightning stroke, had blasted her life.

Her veil slipped, unheeded, from her dresser to the floor. Leaning
forward, she studied her face, that she had once loved, then swiftly
learned to hate. Even on the street, closely veiled, she would not
look at a shop window, lest she might see herself reflected in the
plate glass, and she had kept the mirror, in her room covered with a
cloth,

Since the day she left the hospital, where they all had been so kind to
her, no human being, save herself, had seen her face. She had prayed
for death, but had not been more than slightly ill, upborne, as she
was, by a great grief which sustained her as surely as an ascetic is
kept alive by the passion of his faith. She hungered now for the sight
of her face as she hungered for death, and held the flaring candle
aloft that she might see better.

Then a wave of impassioned self-pity swept her like flame. "The fire
was kind," she said, stubbornly, as though to defend herself from it.
"It showed me the truth."

She leaned yet closer to the glass, holding the dripping candle on
high. "The fire was kind," she insisted again. Then the floodgates
opened, and for the first time in all the sorrowful years, she felt the
hot tears streaming over her face. Her hand shook, but she held her
candle tightly and leaned so close to the mirror that her white hair
brushed its cracked surface.

"The fire was kind," sobbed Miss Evelina. "Oh, but the fire was kind!"

II

Miss Mehitable

The slanting sunbeams of late afternoon crept through the cobwebbed
window, and Miss Evelina stirred uneasily in her sleep. The mocking
dream vanished and she awoke to feel, as always, the iron, icy hand
that unmercifully clutched her heart. The room was cold and she
shivered as she lay beneath her insufficient covering.

At length she rose, and dressed mechanically, avoiding the mirror, and
pinning her veil securely to her hair. She went downstairs slowly,
clinging to the railing from sheer weakness. She was as frail and
ghostly as some disembodied spirit of Grief.

Soon, she had a fire. As the warmth increased, she opened the rear
door of the house to dispel the musty atmosphere. The March wind blew
strong and clear through the lonely rooms, stirring the dust before