surprise; the superlative astonishment was when it became known that she
had left her door key at the post office and said she didn't know when
she would return!

"Where on earth has she gone?" said Old Chester. But only Mrs. Drayton
attempted to reply:

"It certainly looks _very_ strange," said Mrs. Drayton.

It was with the turning of her front-door key that Miss Lydia made
public confession of secrecy--although she had resigned herself to it,
privately, three months before. The Secret had taken possession of her
one hazy September evening, as she was sitting on her front doorstep,
slapping her ankles when a mosquito discovered them, and watching the
dusk falling like a warm veil across the hills. The air was full of the
scent of evening primroses, and Miss Lydia, looking at a clump of them
close to the step, could see the pointed buds begin to unfurl, then
hesitate, then tremble, then opening with a silken burst of sound, spill
their perfume into the twilight. Except for the crickets, it was very
still. Once in a while some one plodded down the road, and once, when it
was quite dark, Mr. Smith's victoria rumbled past, paused until the iron
gates of his driveway swung open, then rumbled on to his big, handsome
house. He was one of the new Smiths, having lived in Old Chester hardly
twenty years; when he came he brought his bride with him--a Norton, she
was, from New England. A nice enough woman, I suppose, but not a
Pennsylvanian. He and his wife built this house, which was so imposing
that for some time they were thought of, contemptuously, as the _rich_
Smiths. But by and by Old Chester felt more kindly and just called them
the new Smiths. Mrs. Smith died when their only child, Mary, was a
little girl, and Mr. Smith grew gradually into our esteem. The fact was,
he was so good-looking and good-humored and high-tempered (he showed his
teeth when he was in a rage, just as a dog does) Old Chester had to like
him--even though it wished he was a better landlord to Miss Lydia, to
whom he rented a crumbling little house just outside his gates. In
matters of business Mr. Smith exacted his pound of flesh--and he got it!
In Lydia's case it sometimes really did represent "flesh," for she must
have squeezed her rent out of her food. Yet when, after her frightful
extravagance in giving that party on money we had given her for the
rebuilding of her chimney, Mr. Smith rebuilt it himself, and said she
was a damned plucky old bird