you, auntie?"

She told him she was forty-six, and making a little mental subtraction
he thought:

"Fifteen when it happened. No, she has had no youth, no girlhood;" but
to her he said: "You do not look so old, and you are very pretty still;
not exactly like Aunt Lucy or mother. You are different from them both,
though more like Aunt Lucy, whose face is the sweetest I ever saw except
yours, which looks as if Christ had put His hand hard upon it and left
His impress there."

There were great tears upon the face where Christ had laid His hands so
hard, and Grey kissed them away, and then asked about the old house, and
said he was coming to spend the day with her just as soon as possible,
and the night, too, adding, in a sudden burst of bravery and enthusiasm:

"And I'll sleep in grandpa's room, if you wish it, I am not afraid
because he died in there."

"No, no," Hannah said, and her cheek paled a little. "It is not
necessary for you to sleep there. No one will ever do that again. I
shall always keep it as he left it."

Grey knew what she meant, but made no comment, and as he seemed very
tired Hannah soon left him to rest.

Naturally strong and full of vigor, Grey's recovery was rapid, and in
ten days from the time the fever left him, his father drove him to the
farm-house, where Hannah was expecting him, with the south room made as
cheerful as possible, and a most tempting lunch spread for him upon a
little round table before the fire. Mr. Jerrold was going to Boston that
afternoon, and so Grey was left alone with his aunt, as he wished to be,
for he meant to tell her that he, too, shared her secret, and after his
father had gone and his lunch was over, he burst out suddenly:

"Auntie, there is something I must tell you. I can't keep it any longer.
I was here the night grandpa died. I was in the kitchen, and heard
about--about that under the floor!"

"Grey!" Hannah gasped, as her work dropped from her nerveless hands,
which shook violently.

"Yes," Grey went on. "I wanted to come with father, but he said no, and
so I went to my room but could not go to bed, for I knew grandpa was
dying, and I wished to see him, and I stole out the back way, and came
across the fields and into the kitchen, where I stood warming myself by
the stove and heard you all talking in the next room. I did not mean to
listen, but I could not help it, and I heard grandpa say: 'Thirty-one
years ago, to-night, I killed a man in the kitche