h of widowhood without attracting the least
attention. She was simply the "relic" of William J. Mosely, who at the
time of his death was the richest man in Jordantown. And by the same
token, after his death, Sarah became the richest woman. She had no
children, no relatives. She was detached in every way, even from her
own property, which was managed by the agent, Samuel Briggs, and was
still known as the "William J. Mosely Estate." She attended divine
service every Sunday morning, always wearing a black silk frock and a
black bonnet tied under her sharp little chin, always sitting erect and
alone in her pew, always staring straight in front of her, but not at
the minister. Recalling this circumstance afterward, Mabel Acres said:

"She must have been thinking of _that_ all the time, not of the sermon."

She paid one dollar a year to the Woman's Home and Foreign Missionary
Society and twenty cents extra for "incidentals." She contributed five
dollars each quarter toward the Reverend Paul Stacey's salary. And she
never, under any circumstance, gave more, no matter how urgent the
appeal. She was suspected of being a miser. There was nothing else of
which she could be suspected. So far as any one knew in Jordantown, she
permitted herself only one luxury: this was a canary bird, not yellow,
but green. It was a very old bird, as canaries go. Somebody once said:
"Old Sarah's making her canary last as long as possible!" Every night
when she retired to her room, she took the cage in with her, hung it
above her bed on a hook, and threw her petticoat over it to keep the
bird quiet during the night.

On the morning of the 6th of April Mrs. Mosely did not appear at the
usual hour, which was six o'clock. The maid waited breakfast until the
toast was cold. Then she went to the door and knocked. No reply. She
opened the door, and fell with a scream to the floor. Something soft and
swift like wings brushed her face. She could not tell what it was. She
saw nothing.

The gardener, hearing her cries, ran in. They both approached the bed.
They beheld the face of their mistress looking like the yellowed dead
petals of a rose, wrinkled, withered, awfully still on the pillow.

The woman screamed again.

"She's dead! it was her spirit that brushed my face just now!"

"No, it was the canary. The cage is empty," said the gardener.

"I tell you the thing I felt was white!" cried the woman.

"Felt! If you'd looked, you'd have seen it was th