ey had gathered her favorite possessions from other
parts of the house, and taken one end of it for her sitting-room. The
most comfortable chairs had found their way here, and a luxurious
great sofa which had once been in the library, as well as the bookcase
which held her favorite books.

The house had been built by Miss Sydney's grandfather, and in his day
it had seemed nearly out of the city: now there was only one other
house left near it; for one by one the quiet, aristocratic old street
had seen its residences give place to shops and warehouses, and Miss
Sydney herself had scornfully refused many offers of many thousand
dollars for her home. It was so changed! It made her so sad to think
of the dear old times, and to see the houses torn down, or the
small-paned windows and old-fashioned front-doors replaced with French
plate-glass to display better the wares which were to take the places
of the quaint furniture and well-known faces of her friends! But Miss
Sydney was an old woman, and her friends had diminished sadly. "It
seems to me that my invitations are all for funerals in these days,"
said she to her venerable maid Hannah, who had helped her dress for
her parties fifty years before. She had given up society little by
little. Her friends had died, or she had allowed herself to drift away
from them, while the acquaintances from whom she might have filled
their places were only acquaintances still. She was the last of her
own family, and, for years before her father died, he had lived mainly
in his library, avoiding society and caring for nothing but books; and
this, of course, was a check upon his daughter's enjoyment of
visitors. Being left to herself, she finally became content with her
own society, and since his death, which followed a long illness, she
had refused all invitations; and with the exception of the interchange
of occasional ceremonious calls with perhaps a dozen families, and her
pretty constant attendance at church, you rarely were reminded of her
existence. And I must tell the truth: it was not easy to be intimate
with her. She was a good woman in a negative kind of way. One never
heard of any thing wrong she had done; and if she chose to live alone,
and have nothing to do with people, why, it was her own affair. You
never seemed to know her any better after a long talk. She had a very
fine, courteous way of receiving her guests,--a way of making you feel
at your ease more than you imagined yo