t, who wandered about
this town, staying now in one house and now in another as folks took
compassion on her. She was never seen agin after that fire. If she was in
the schoolhouse that day, as she sometimes was, the number would be made
up. No one was left to tell us. It was an awful time, sir. The village
hasn't got over it yet."

Mr. Ransom made some sympathetic rejoinder and withdrew towards the
gateway, but soon came strolling back. The man had arranged his tools and
was preparing to go to work.

"It seems as if the family was pretty well represented here," remarked
Ransom. "Is it the girl herself,--Anitra, I believe you called her,--who
has ordered this record of her death removed?"

"Oh, no, you don't know them Hazens. There's one of 'em who has quite a
story; the twin of this Anitra. She lived to grow up and have a lot of
money left her. If you lived in Sitford, or lived in New York, you'd know
all about her; for her name's been in the papers a lot this week. She's
the great lady who married and left her husband all in one day; and for
what reason do you think? We know, because she don't keep no secrets from
her old friends. _She's found this sister_, and it's her as has ordered
me to chip away this name. She wants it done to-day, because she's coming
here with this gal she's found. Folks say she ran across her in the
street and knew her at once. Can you guess how?"

"From her name?"

"Lord, no; from what I hear, she hadn't any name. _From her looks!_ She
saw her own self when she looked at her."

"How interesting, how very interesting," stammered Mr. Ransom, feeling
his newly won convictions shaken again. "Quite remarkable the whole
story. And so is this inscription," he added, pointing to the words
_Georgian Toritti_, etc. "Did the woman have two husbands, and was the
Alfred Hazen, whose death at sea is commemorated here, the son of Toritti
or of Hazen?"

"Of Toritti," grumbled the man, evidently displeased at the question. "A
black-browed devil who it won't do to talk about here. Mrs. Hazen was
only a slip of a gal when she married him, and as he didn't live but a
couple o' months folks have sort o' forgiven her and forgotten him. To us
Mrs. Hazen was always Mrs. Hazen; and Alf--well, he was just Alf Hazen
too; a lad with too much good in him to perish in them murderous waters a
thousand miles from home."

So they still believed Hazen dead! No intimation of his return had as yet
reached Sitford. Thi