oking past
him at the door, and turned himself.

He went toward her with a little flourish of words, but the old lady
ignored him entirely. She held up her chin with a kind of ancient
pertness, and eyed Mrs. Field. She was a small, straight-backed
woman, full of nervous vibrations. She stood apparently still, but
her black silk whispered all the time, and loose ends of black ribbon
trembled. The black silk had an air of old gentility about it, but it
was very shiny; there were many bows, but the ribbons were limp,
having been pressed and dyed. Her face, yellow and deeply wrinkled,
but sharply vivacious, was overtopped by a bunch of purple flowers in
a nest of rusty black lace and velvet.

So far Mrs. Field had maintained a certain strained composure, but
now her long, stern face began flushing beneath this old lady's gaze.

"I conclude you know this lady," said the lawyer, with a blandly
facetious air to the new-comer.

At that she stepped forward promptly, with a jerk as if to throw off
her irresolution, and a certain consternation. "Yes, I s'pose I do,"
said she, in a voice like a shrill high chirp. "It's Mis' Maxwell,
ain't it--Edward's wife? How do you do, Esther? I hadn't seen you for
so long, I wasn't quite sure, but I see who you are now. How do you
do?"

"I'm pretty well, thank you," said Mrs. Field, with a struggle,
putting her twisted hand into the other woman's, extended quiveringly
in a rusty black glove.

"When did you come to town, Esther?"

"Jest now."

"Let me see, where from? I can't seem to remember the name of the
place where you've been livin'. I know it, too."

"Green River."

"Oh, yes, Green River. Well, I'm glad to see you, Esther. You ain't
changed much, come to look at you; not so much as I have, I s'pose. I
don't expect you'd know me, would you?"

"I--don't know as I would." Mrs. Field recoiled from a lie even in
the midst of falsehood.

The old lady's face contracted a little, but she could spring above
her emotions. "Well, I don't s'pose you would, either," responded
she, with fine alacrity. "I've grown old and wrinkled and yellow,
though I ain't gray," with a swift glance at Mrs. Field's smooth
curves of white hair. "You turned gray pretty young, didn't you,
Esther?"

"Yes, I did."

The old lady's front hair hung in dark-brown spirals, a little bunch
of them against either cheek, outside her bonnet. She set them
dancing with a little dip of her head when she spoke again