er that had strength to banish it, the image
of her visitor of to-day.

There she was again--at least, all that memory supplied! What was her
dress? Old Maisie could not recall this. The image supplied a
greeny-blue sort of plaid, but memory wavered over that. Her testimony
was clear about the hair; plenty of it, packed close with a ripple on
the suspicion of grey over the forehead, that seemed to have halted
there, unconfirmed. At any rate, there would be no more inside those
knot-twists behind, that still showed an autumnal golden brown,
Pomona-like. Yes, she had had abundance in the summer of her life, and
that was not so long ago. How old was she?--old Maisie asked herself.
Scarcely fifty yet, seemed a reasonable answer. She had forgotten to ask
her christened name, but she could make a guess at it--could fit her
with one to her liking. Margaret--Mary?--No, not exactly. Try Bertha....
Yes--Bertha might do.... But she could think about her so much better in
the half-dark. She rose and blew the candles out, then went back to her
chair and the line of thought that had pleased her.

How fortunate this good woman had been to hit upon the convalescent
idea! She, herself, when her worst loneliness clouded her horizon, might
have devised some such _modus vivendi_--as between herself and her
enemy, Solitude; not as mere means to live. But, indeed, Solitude had
intruded upon her first, disguised as a friend. The irksomeness of life
had come upon her later, when the sting of her son's wickedness began to
die away. Moreover, her delicacy of health had disqualified her for
active responsibilities. This Mrs. Marrable's antecedents had made no
inroads on _her_ constitution, evidently.

See where the fire had crept over these lichens and devoured them! The
log would soon be black, when once the heat got a fair hold of it. Now,
the pent-up steam from some secret core, that had kept its moisture
through the warmth of a summer, hissed out in an angry jet, stung by the
conquering flame. There, see!--from some concealment in the bark,
mysteriously safe till now, a six-legged beetle, panic-struck and
doomed. Cosmic fires were at work upon his world--that world he thought
so safe! It was the end of the Universe for him--_his_ Universe! Old
Maisie would gladly have played the part of a merciful Divinity, and
worked a miraculous salvation. But alas!--the poor little fugitive was
too swift to his own combustion in the deadly fires below. W