think I shall ever be like--like--that is--I shall ever be--all
alone?"

"I don't know, dearie. No one can ever tell what will happen. I never
thought twenty years ago I should be all alone--but I am."

The girl raised her head, and with a cry of pain threw her arms around
the Little Gray Lady's neck:

"Oh, no!--no! I can't bear it!" she sobbed! "I'll tell Mark! I'll send
for him--to-night-before I go to bed!"

III

It was not until Kate Dayton reached her father's gate that the spell
wrought by the flickering firelight and the dim glow of the ghostly
candle wore off. The crisp air of the winter night--for it was now quite
dark--had helped, but the sight of Mark's waiting figure striding along
the snow-covered path to her home and his manly outspoken apology,
"Please forgive me, Kate, I made an awful fool of myself," followed by
her joyous refrain, "Oh, Mark! I've been so wretched!" had done more. It
had all come just as Cousin Annie had said; there had been neither pride
nor anger. Only the Little Gray Lady's timely word.

But if the spell was broken the pathetic figure of the dear woman, her
eyes fixed on the dying embers, still lingered in Kate's mind.

"Oh, Mark, it is so pitiful to see her!--and I got so frightened; the
whole room seemed filled with ghosts. Christmas seems her loneliest
time. She won't have but one candle lighted, and she sits and mopes in
the dark. Oh, it's dreadful! I tried to cheer her up, but she says she
likes to sit in the dark, because then all the dead people she loves can
come to her. Can't we do something to make her happy? She is so lovely,
and she is so little, and she is so dear!"

They had entered the house, now a blaze of light. Kate's father was
standing on the hearth rug, his back to a great fireplace filled with
roaring logs.

"Where have you two gadabouts been?" he laughed merrily. "What do you
mean by staying out this late? Don't you know it's Christmas Eve?"

"We've been to see Cousin Annie, daddy; and it would make your heart
ache to look at her! She's there all alone. Can't you go down and bring
her up here?"

"Yes, I could, but she wouldn't come, not on Christmas Eve. Did she have
her candle burning?"

"Yes, just one poor little miserable candle that hardly gave any light
at all."

"And it was in the corner on a little table?"

"Yes, all by itself."

"Poor dear, she always lights it. She's lighted it for almost twenty
years."

"Is it for somebody