HOW would it do for a smoking room?"

      "Just the very place; only, you know, Roger, you must not think of smoking in the house. I am almost afraid having just a plain common man around, let alone a smoking-man, will upset Aunt Hannah. She is New England — Vermont New England boiled down."

      "You leave Aunt Hannah to me; I shall find her tender side. I am going to ask her about the old sea-captain and the yellow calico."

      "Not yellow calico — blue chintz."

      "Well, yellow shell, then."

      "No, no! don't mix it up so; you won't know yourself what to expect, and that's half the fun."

      "Now you tell me again exactly what to expect; to tell the truth, I didn't half hear about it the other day; I was wool-gathering. It was something queer that happened when you were a child, wasn't it?"

      "Something that began to happen long before that, and kept happening, and may happen again; but I hope not."

      "What was it?"

      "I wonder if the other people in the car can hear us?"

      "I fancy not; we don't hear them — not consecutively, at least."

      "Well, mother was born in Vermont, you know; she was the only child by a second marriage. Aunt Hannah and Aunt Maria are only half-aunts to me, you know."

      "I hope they are half as nice as you are."

      "Roger, be still; they certainly will hear us."

      "Well, don't you want them to know we are married?"

      "Yes, but not just married. There's all the difference in the world."

      "You are afraid we look too happy!"

      "No; only I want my happiness all to myself."

      "Well, the little room?"

      "My aunts brought mother up; they were nearly twenty years older than she. I might say Hiram and they brought her up. You see, Hiram was bound out to my grandfather when he was a boy, and when grandfather died Hiram said he 'sposed he went with the farm, 'long o' the critters," and he has been there ever since. He was my mother's only refuge from the decorum of my aunts. They are simply workers. They make me think of the Maine woman who wanted her epitaph to be, "She was a hard working woman.'"

      "They must be almost beyond their working-days. How old are they?"

      "Seventy, or thereabouts; but they will die standing; or, at least, on a Saturday night, after all the house-work is done up. They were rather strict with mother, and I think she had a lonely childhood. The house is almost a mile away from any neighbors, and off on top of what they call Stony Hill. It is bleak enough up there even in summer.

      "When mamma was about ten years old they sent her to cousins in Brooklyn, who had children of their own, and knew more about bringing them up. She staid there till she was married; she didn't go to Vermont in all that time, and of course hadn't seen her sisters, for they never would leave home for a day. They couldn't even be induced to go to Brooklyn to her wedding, so she and father took their wedding trip up there."

      "And that's why we are going up there on our own?"

      "Don't, Roger; you have no idea how loud you speak."

      "You never say so except when I am going to say that one little word."

      "Well, don't say it, then, or say it very, very quietly."

      "Well, what was the queer thing?"

      "When they got to the house, mother wanted to take father right off into the little room; she had been telling him about it, just as I am going to tell you, and she had said that of all the rooms, that one was the only one that seemed pleasant to her. She described the furniture and the books and paper and every thing, and said it was on the north side, between the front and back room. Well, when they went to look for it, there was no little room there; there was only a shallow china-closet. She asked her sisters when the house had been altered and a closet made of the room that used to be there. They both said the house was exactly as it had been built — that they had never made any changes, except to tear down the old wood-shed and build a smaller one.

      "Father and mother laughed a good deal over it, and when anything was lost they would always say it must be in the little room, and any exaggerated statement was called 'little-roomy.' When I was a child I thought that was a regular English phrase, I heard it so often.

      "Well, they talked it over, and finally they concluded that my mother had been a very imaginative sort of a child, and had read in some book about such a little room, or perhaps even dreamed it, and then had 'made believe,' as children do, till she herself had really thought the room was there."

      "Why, of course, that might easily happen."

      "Yes, but you haven't heard the queer part yet; you wait and see if you can explain the rest as easily.

      "They staid at the farm two weeks, and then went to New York to live. When I was eight years old my father was killed in the war, and mother was broken-hearted. She never was quite strong afterwards, and that summer we decided to go up to the farm for three months.

      "I was a restless sort of a child, and the journey seemed very long to me; and finally, to pass the time, mamma told me the story of the little room, and how it was all in her own imagination, and how there really was only a china-closet there.

      "She told it with all the particulars; and even to me, who knew beforehand that the room wasn't there, it seemed just as real as could be. She said it was on the north side, between the front and back rooms; that it was very small, and they sometimes called it an entry. There was a door also that opened out-of-doors, and that one was painted green, and was cut in the middle like the old Dutch doors, so that it could be used for a window by opening the top part only. Directly opposite the door was a lounge or couch; it was covered with blue chintz — India chintz — some that had been brought over by an old Salem sea-captain as a 'venture.' He had given it to Maria when she was a young girl. She was sent to Salem for two years to school. Grandfather originally came from Salem."

      "I thought there wasn't any room or chintz."

      "That is just it. They had decided that mother had imagined it all, and yet you see how exactly everything was painted in her mind, for she had even remembered that Hiram had told her that Maria could have married the sea-captain if she had wanted to!

      "The India cotton was the regular blue stamped chintz, with the peacock figure on it. The head and body of the bird were in profile, while the tail was full front view behind it. It had seemed to take mamma's fancy, and she drew it for me on a piece of paper as she talked. Doesn't it seem strange to you that she could have made all that up, or even dreamed it?

      "At the foot of the lounge were some hanging shelves with some old books on them. All the books were leather-colored except one; that was bright red, and was called the Ladies' Album. It made a bright break between the other thicker books.

      "On the lower shelf was a beautiful pink sea-shell, lying on a mat made of balls of red shaded worsted. This shell was greatly coveted by mother, but she was only allowed to play with it when she had been particularly good. Hiram had showed her how to hold it close to her ear and hear the roar of the sea in it.

      "I know you will like Hiram, Roger, he is quite a character in his way.

      "Mamma said she remembered, or thought she remembered, having been sick once, and she had to lie quietly for some days on the lounge; then was the time she had become so familiar with everything in the room, and she had been allowed to have the shell to play with all the time. She had had her toast brought to her in there, with make-believe tea. It was one of her pleasant memories of her childhood; it was the first time she had been of any importance to anybody, even herself.

      "Right at the head of the lounge was a light-stand, as they called it, and on it was a very brightly polished brass candle-stick and a brass tray, with snuffers. That is all I remember of her describing, except that there was a braided rag rug on the floor, and on the wall was a beautiful flowered paper—roses and morning-glories in a wreath on a light blue ground. The same paper was in the front room."

      "And all this never existed except in her imagination?"

      "She said that when she and father went up there, there wasn't any little room at all like it anywhere in the house; there was a china-closet where she had believed the room to be."

      "And your aunts said there had never been any such room."

      "That is what they said."

      "Wasn't there any blue chintz in the house with a peacock figure?"

      "Not a scrap, and Aunt Hannah said there had never been any that she could remember; and Maria just echoed her — she always does that. You see, Aunt Hannah is an up-and-down New England woman. She looks just like herself; I mean, just like her character. Her joints move up and down or backward and forward in a plain square fashion. I don't believe she ever leaned on anything in her life, or sat in an easy-chair. But Maria is different; she is rounder and softer; she hasn't any ideas of her own; she never had any. I don't believe she would think it right or becoming to have one that differed from Aunt Hannah's, so what would be the use of having any? She is an echo, that's all.

      "When mamma and I got there, of course I was all excitement to see the china-closet, and I had a sort of feeling that it would be the little room after all. So I ran ahead and threw open the door, crying, 'Come and see the little room.'

      "And, Roger," said Mrs. Grant, laying her hand in his, "there really was a little room there, exactly as mother had remembered it. There was the lounge, the peacock chintz, the green door, the shell, the morning-glory and rose paper, everything exactly as she had described it to me."

      "What in the world did the sisters say about it?"

      "Wait a minute and I will tell you. My mother was in the front hall still talking with Aunt Hannah. She didn't hear me at first, but I ran out there and dragged her through the front room, saying, 'The room is here — it is all right.'

      "It seemed for a minute as if my mother would faint. She clung to me in terror. I can remember now how strained her eyes looked and how pale she was.

      "I called out to Aunt Hannah and asked her when they had had the closet taken away and the little room built; for in my excitement I thought that that was what had been done.

      "'That little room has always been there,' said Aunt Hannah, 'ever since the house was built.'

      "'But mamma said there wasn't any little room here, only a china-closet, when she was here with papa,' said I.

      "'No, there has never been any china closet there; it has always been just as it is now,' said Aunt Hannah.

      "Then mother spoke; her voice sounded weak and far off. She said, slowly, and with an effort, 'Maria, don't you remember that you told me that there had never been any little room here? and Hannah said so too, and then I said I must have dreamed it?'

      "'No, I don't remember anything of the kind,' said Maria, without the slightest emotion. 'I don't remember you ever said anything about any china-closet. The house has never been altered; you used to play in this room when you were a child, don't you remember?'

      "'I know it,' said mother, in that queer slow voice that made me feel frightened. 'Hannah, don't you remember my finding the china-closet here, with the gilt-edged china on the shelves, and then you said that the china-closet had always been here?'

      "'No,' said Hannah, pleasantly but unemotionally — 'no, I don't think you ever asked me about any china-closet, and we haven't any gilt-edged china that I know of.'

      "And that was the strangest thing about it. We never could make them remember that there had ever been any question about it. You would think they could remember how surprised mother had been before, unless she had imagined the whole thing. Oh, it was so queer! They were always pleasant about it, but they didn't seem to feel any interest or curiosity. It was always this answer: 'The house is just as it was built; there have never been any changes, so far as we know.'

      "And my mother was in an agony of perplexity. How cold their gray eyes looked to me! There was no reading anything in them. It just seemed to break my mother down, this queer thing. Many times that summer, in the middle of the night, I have seen her get up and take a candle and creep softly down stairs. I could hear the steps creak under her weight. Then she would go through the front room and peer into the darkness, holding her thin hand between the candle and her eyes. She seemed to think the little room might vanish. Then she would come back to bed and toss about all night, or lie still and shiver; it used to frighten me.

      "She grew pale and thin, and she had a little cough; then she did not like to be left alone. Sometimes she would make errands in order to send me to the little room for something — a book, or her fan, or her handkerchief; but she would never sit there or let me stay in there long, and sometimes she wouldn't let me go in there for days together. Oh, it was pitiful!"

      "Well, don't talk any more about it, Margaret, if it makes you feel so," said Mr. Grant.

      "Oh yes, I want you to know all about it, and there isn't much more — no more about the room.

      "Mother never got well, and she died that autumn. She used often to sigh, and say, with a wan little laugh, 'There is one thing I am glad of, Margaret: your father knows now all about the little room.' I think she was afraid I distrusted her. Of course, in a child's way, I thought there was something queer about it, but I did not brood over it. I was too young then, and took it as a part of her illness. But, Roger, do you know, it really did affect me. I almost hate to go there after talking about it; I somehow feel as if it might, you know, be a china-closet again."

      "That's an absurd idea."

      "I know it; of course it can't be. I saw the room, and there isn't any china closet there, and no gilt-edged china in the house, either."

      And then she whispered, "But, Roger, you may hold my hand as you do now, if you will, when we go to look for the little room."

      "And you won't mind Aunt Hannah's gray eyes?"

      "I won't mind anything."

      It was dusk when Mr. and Mrs. Grant went into the gate under the two old Lombardy poplars and walked up the narrow path to the door, where they were met by the two aunts.

      Hannah gave Mrs. Grant a frigid but not unfriendly kiss; and Maria seemed for a moment to tremble on the verge of an emotion, but she glanced at Hannah, and then gave her greeting in exactly the same repressed and non-committal way.

      Supper was waiting for them. On the table was the gilt-edged china. Mrs. Grant didn't notice it immediately, till she saw her husband smiling at her over his teacup; then she felt fidgety, and couldn't eat. She was nervous, and kept wondering what was behind her, whether it would be a little room or a closet.

      After supper she offered to help about the dishes, but, mercy! she might as well have offered to help bring the seasons round; Maria and Hannah couldn't be helped.

      So she and her husband went to find the little room, or closet, or whatever was to be there.

      Aunt Maria followed them, carrying the lamp, which she set down, and then went back to the dish-washing.

      Margaret looked at her husband. He kissed her, for she seemed troubled; and then, hand in hand, they opened the door. It opened into a china-closet. The shelves were neatly draped with scalloped paper; on them was the gilt-edged china, with the dishes missing that had been used at the supper, and which at that moment were being carefully washed and wiped by the two aunts.

      Margaret's husband dropped her hand and looked at her. She was trembling a little, and turned to him for help, for some explanation, but in an instant she knew that something was wrong. A cloud had come between them; he was hurt; he was antagonized.

      He paused for an appreciable instant, and then said, kindly enough, but in a voice that cut her deeply,

      "I am glad this ridiculous thing is ended; don't let us speak of it again."

      "Ended!" said she. "How ended?" And somehow her voice sounded to her as her mother's voice had when she stood there and questioned her sisters about the little room. She seemed to have to drag her words out. She spoke slowly: "It seems to me to have only just begun in my case. It was just so with mother when she —"

      "I really wish, Margaret, you would let it drop. I don't like to hear you speak of your mother in connection with it. It —" He hesitated, for was not this their wedding-day? "It doesn't seem quite the thing, quite delicate, you know, to use her name in the matter."

      She saw it all now: he didn't believe her. She felt a chill sense of withering under his glance.

      "Come," he added, "let us go out, or into the dining-room, somewhere, any where, only drop this nonsense."

      He went out; he did not take her hand now — he was vexed, baffled, hurt. Had he not given her his sympathy, his attention, his belief — and his hand? — and she was fooling him. What did it mean? — she so truthful, so free from morbidness — a thing he hated. He walked up and down under the poplars, trying to get into the mood to go and join her in the house.

      Margaret heard him go out; then she turned and shook the shelves; she reached her hand behind them and tried to push the boards away; she ran out of the house on to the north side and tried to find in the darkness, with her hands, a door, or some steps leading to one. She tore her dress on the old rose-trees, she fell and rose and stumbled, then she sat down on the ground and tried to think. What could she think — was she dreaming?

      She went into the house and out into the kitchen, and begged Aunt Maria to tell her about the little room — what had become of it, when had they built the closet, when had they bought the gilt-edged china?

      They went on washing dishes and drying them on the spotless towels with methodical exactness; and as they worked they said that there had never been any little room, so far as they knew; the china-closet had always been there, and the gilt-edged china had belonged to their mother, it had always been in the house.

      "No, I don't remember that your mother ever asked about any little room," said Hannah. "She didn't seem very well that summer, but she never asked about any changes in the house; there hadn't ever been any changes."

      There it was again: not a sign of interest, curiosity, or annoyance, not a spark of memory.

      She went out to Hiram. He was telling Mr. Grant about the farm. She had meant to ask him about the room, but her lips were sealed before her husband.

      Months afterwards, when time had lessened the sharpness of their feelings, they learned to speculate reasonably about the phenomenon, which Mr. Grant had accepted as something not to be scoffed away, not to be treated as a poor joke, but to be put aside as something inexplicable on any ordinary theory.

      Margaret alone in her heart knew that her mother's words carried a deeper significance than she had dreamed of at the time. "One thing I am glad of, your father knows now," and she wondered if Roger or she would ever know.

      Five years later they were going to Europe. The packing was done; the children were lying asleep, with their travelling things ready to be slipped on for an early start.

      Roger had a foreign appointment. They were not to be back in America for some years. She had meant to go up to say good-by to her aunts; but a mother of three children intends to do a great many things that never get done. One thing she had done that very day, and as she paused for a moment between the writing of two notes that must be posted before she went to bed, she said:

      "Roger, you remember Rita Lash? Well, she and Cousin Nan go up to the Adirondacks every autumn. They are clever girls, and I have intrusted to them something I want done very much."

      "They are the girls to do it, then, every inch of them."

      "I know it, and they are going to."

      "Well?"

      "Why, you see, Roger, that little room —"

      "Oh —"

      "Yes, I was a coward not to go myself, but I didn't find time, because I hadn't the courage."

      "Oh! that was it, was it?"

      "Yes, just that. They are going, and they will write us about it."

      "Want to bet?"

      "No; I only want to know."
  

      Rita Lash and Cousin Nan planned to go to Vermont on their way to the Adirondacks. They found they would have three hours between trains, which would give them time to drive up to the Keys farm, and they could still get to the camp that night. But, at the last minute, Rita was prevented from going. Nan had to go to meet the Adirondack party, and she promised to telegraph her when she arrived at the camp. Imagine Rita's amusement when she received this message: "Safely arrived; went to the Keys farm; it is a little room."

      Rita was amused, because she did not in the least think Nan had been there. She thought it was a hoax; but it put it into her mind to carry the joke further by really stopping herself when she went up, as she meant to do the next week.

      She did stop over. She introduced herself to the two maiden ladies, who seemed familiar, as they had been described by Mrs. Grant.

      They were, if not cordial, at least not disconcerted at her visit, and willingly showed her over the house. As they did not speak of any other stranger's having been to see them lately, she became confirmed in her belief that Nan had not been there.

      In the north room she saw the roses and morning-glory paper on the wall, and also the door that should open into — what?

      She asked if she might open it.

      "Certainly," said Hannah; and Maria echoed, "Certainly."

      She opened it, and found the china-closet. She experienced a certain relief; she at least was not under any spell. Mrs. Grant left it a china-closet; she found it the same. Good.

      But she tried to induce the old sisters to remember that there had at various times been certain questions relating to a confusion as to whether the closet had always been a closet. It was no use; their stony eyes gave no sign.

      Then she thought of the story of the sea-captain, and said, "Miss Keys, did you ever have a lounge covered with India chintz, with a figure of a peacock on it, given to you in Salem by a sea-captain, who brought it from India?"

      "I dun'no' as I ever did," said Hannah. That was all. She thought Maria's cheeks were a little flushed, but her eyes were like a stone wall.

      She went on that night to the Adirondacks. When Nan and she were alone in their room she said, "By-the-way, Nan, what did you see at the farm-house? and how did you like Maria and Hannah?"

      Nan didn't mistrust that Rita had been there, and she began excitedly to tell her all about her visit. Rita could almost have believed Nan had been there if she hadn't known it was not so. She let her go on for some time, enjoying her enthusiasm, and the impressive way in which she described her opening the door and finding the "little room." Then Rita said: "Now, Nan, that is enough fibbing. I went to the farm myself on my way up yesterday, and there is no little room, and there never has been any; it is a china-closet, just as Mrs. Grant saw it last."

      She was pretending to be busy unpacking her trunk, and did not look up for a moment; but as Nan did not say anything, she glanced at her over her shoulder. Nan was actually pale, and it was hard to say whether she was most angry or frightened. There was something of both in her look. And then Rita began to explain how her telegram had put her in the spirit of going up there alone. She hadn't meant to cut Nan out. She only thought— Then Nan broke in: "It isn't that; I am sure you can't think it is that. But I went myself, and you did not go; you can't have been there, for it is a little room."

      Oh, what a night they had! They couldn't sleep. They talked and argued, and then kept still for a while, only to break out again, it was so absurd. They both maintained that they had been there, but both felt sure the other one was either crazy or obstinate beyond reason. They were wretched; it was perfectly ridiculous, two friends at odds over such a thing; but there it was — "little room," "china-closet," — "china-closet," "little room."

      The next morning Nan was tacking up some tarlatan at a window to keep the midges out. Rita offered to help her, as she had done for the past ten years. Nan's "No, thanks," cut her to the heart.

      "Nan," said she, "come right down from that stepladder and pack your satchel. The stage leaves in just twenty minutes. We can catch the afternoon express train, and we will go together to the farm. I am either going there or going home. You better go with me."

      Nan didn't say a word. She gathered up the hammer and tacks, and was ready to start when the stage came round.

      It meant for them thirty miles of staging and six hours of train, besides crossing the lake; but what of that, compared with having a lie lying round loose between them! Europe would have seemed easy to accomplish, if it would settle the question.

      At the little junction in Vermont they found a farmer with a wagon full of meal-bags. They asked him if he could not take them up to the old Keys farm and bring them back in time for the return train, due in two hours.

      They had planned to call it a sketching trip, so they said, "We have been there before, we are artists, and we might find some views worth taking, and we want also to make a short call upon the Misses Keys."

      "Did ye calculate to paint the old house in the picture?"

      They said it was possible they might do so. They wanted to see it, anyway.

      "Waal, I guess you are too late. The house burnt down last night, and every thing in it."

 
[THE END]

---

OR the land's sake! What 'll Maria do now!'

      'That's just what Hiram said — "What 'll Maria do now!"

      It aint as if she had folks belongin' to her, and now the house is burnt, and Hannah is as she is, it does seem as if Maria 'd find it hard gittin' on alone and doin' her own thinkin'.'

      'There wa n't nothin' saved, I s'pose.'

      'Next door to nothin'; one washtub, I believe, and the old gray horse that was out to pasture, that 's about all; I did hear, though, something about the men-folks' having saved a blue-chintz sofy — 't was the only thing they could get out of the house before the roof fell in; they could n't seem to get a holt of anythin' else, 't was so hot, and the old house burnt like tinder; Hannah she was that scairt she seemed dazed, and this mornin' Miss Fife, she that married Ben Fife down on the Edge farm, at the foot of the hill, they took 'em in and did for 'em; and when Lucindy Fife went to call 'em to breakfast at five o'clock, there was Maria cryin' like a baby, and Hannah lyin', like an image, with her eyes starin' wide open; she must a had a shock in the night.'

      'Fur the land's sake!' said the other woman again.

      'Yes, and Miss Fife she tried to get Maria to eat somethin', but she would n't eat a thing; she just sat and cried; you know she was always sort of a shadder to Hannah, and now she 's just like a baby.'

      'I declair! I believe I 'll go up to Miss Fife's; I hate to lose the time, I ought to stir butter to-day; but just as likely as not lots of folks 'll drop in, and I sort of want to hear it all at first hand.'

      'I believe you 're right, and if you 'll set a while, I'll hurry up these doughnuts and be ready in no time; it's a sort of lonesome walk up there.'

      The Widder Luke turned the light side of a doughnut under, the fat sizzled, and Jane Peebles said: 'Did you hear what sofy 't was that they saved?'

      'I do n't rightly know myself which one 't was. Miss Culver she said it was the blue chintz one, but I do n't recollect as they had no blue sofy; I do n't seem to know exactly what they did have. Hannah never was just the same to me after we had that tiff over the raspberry jam she and I made for the church sale; but I aint goin' to bring that up agin her, now she 's laid low; I shall go up there just the same in their time of trouble.'

      'I s'pose the sofy must have been a new one, or they would n't have been so keen to save it.'

      'I guess 't was; — seems as if these doughnuts would n't never brown; it 's always so when you're in a hurry.'

      'I guess I 'll ask Maria about that sofy,' said Jane; 'it's likely that she 'll tell all she knows when she gets used to the situation; I always thought Maria was a sight nicer than she seemed. I know once she came near tellin' me how they made that soft soap, that special kind you know, so white, and it keeps like jell, year after year; 't was at a sewin'-bee, and Maria she warmed up and was just goin' to tell me, when Hannah she came in, and Maria she shet up as quick as anythin'. It was sort of curious how she knuckled down to Hannah. Did you ever think Hannah was sort of set?' added Jane, in a low, mysterious tone.

      'Hannah set! She was sotter'n a meetin'-house, and you know it, Jane Peebles, for all you sided with her about that raspberry jam.'

      Widder Luke's eyes flashed as she lifted the kettle of hot fat. She got in a good stroke on an old score, and Jane did not dare to retort. Soon after twelve she and Jane Peebles were walking through the lane towards the Fifes' — there was a Sunday air about their dresses, but a Monday decision in their faces; the reporting in hill towns is done mostly by such volunteers, and one must 'git up airly' for the first news.

      Widder Luke carried a plate of doughnuts as a neighborly tribute to the occasion.

      At the Corners the women paused a moment; they could see from where they stood the black skeleton of the burned barn silhouetted against the sky, beyond 'Huckleberry Hill.'

      Just then Si Briggs came along in his spring wagon, with two strange ladies on the back seat. They took the right-hand road that led to the old Keys place, and as they passed, Mr. Briggs drew his reins with an osh-sh-sh to his horse.

      'Won't you get in and ride up the hill?' Widder Luke and Miss Peebles decorously hesitated a moment, and then climbed over the wheel and sat on either side of Mr. Briggs, who settled himself leisurely between the two women with neighborly familiarity. Then pointing backward with the butt-end of his whip to indicate and introduce his passengers, he said: 'These ladies were pretty well disappointed to find the Keys house burnt up; they come all the way from — where did you say 't was you come from?'

      'We came down from the Adirondacks,' said Rita. 'We wanted to call on Miss Hannah and Maria, and if possible to get a sketch of the house, to paint a picture of it.'

      'You do n't say so! well I declair for it, it's too bad!' said the Widder Luke; 'but there 's sights of houses older 'n that one you might paint; there's the Fife house, where they are stoppin' now; that 's as old agin and more tumble-down, if that's what you want. I read a piece in the "Greentown Gazette" about artists; it said they always took the worst-lookin' houses to paint, though it does seem queer to me.'

      'Did you know the Keys house very well, and can you tell us how the rooms were built?'

      'Why, certain!' said Mr. Briggs. 'I 've been in it a hundred times if I have once.'

      Rita and Nan bent forward to listen; the horse jogged slowly up the hill, Mr. Briggs flicking his whip from side to side to encourage the steady walk.

      'There was a hall a-runnin' right through the middle, from front to back — an awful waste of space to my thinkin'; when my brother Joel built his house he sot out to have just such a hall, and I said to him, sez I: "While you 're about it why do n't you build a house, or else build a hall and let it out for dancin'?" Joel was dead set agin dancin' and it kind of stuck in his mind, so he built his 'n without any hall; you jest step right out of doors into the settin'-room; it's nice in summer, but a leetle cold in winter.'

      'Yes, I should think it might be. What were the other rooms in the Keys house?'

      'Wall, there was the family settin'-room, on the right-hand side of the hall, and back of that the bed-room for the old folks; Hannah she 's slep' there for some years now; on the north side there was the keepin'-room, and back of that the dinin'-room, though I 'll be blessed if I know why it wasn't a kitchen, that is, if a kitchen is where folks cook. Them Keyses, way back to Jonathan Keys, was always folks for high-flyin' names, 'specially Hannah.'

      'Was that all the rooms there were in the lower part?'

      'Pretty much all, except a shed they used for a kitchen in old times.'

      'Was n't there a little room between the front and back rooms on the north side?' asked Nan, a little hesitatingly, while Rita gave her a pinch of excitement.

      'I don'no' as there was,' said Mr. Briggs.

      Jane Peebles spoke up:

      'I believe there was some sort of a room there. I remember once Maria said she kept that north door a leetle crack open in fly-time, and it did seem to rid the little room of flies considerble.'

      'I do n't recollect,' said Mr. Briggs, 'as there was a door on the north side, but I aint sure; them pine-trees was so dark and the rose-bushes so thick; I can't remember as I 've been round there lately; it did n't seem any special place to go to.'

      'Well!' said Jane Peebles, decisively, 'I guess there aint nobody in Titusville that knows any more about that house than I do, unless it's the Keyses themselves; and I know there was a little room.'

      'Now Jane!' said Widder Luke (Jane wilted a little); 'if there was a little room there, where was the door to it — on the inside I mean? I guess I have n't been to the Baptist Sewing Circle for forty years for nothin', and the Keyses have had it once every year, in January; and I venture to say I 've set and sewed in that front room scores of times, and the only door in the front room was the door into the china-closet, except, of course, the door into the hall-way; and as to the dinin'-room, as they called it' (Si Briggs was a widower, and this was a subtle compliment to him), 'there wa n't no door at all on that side of the room, just blank wall, with them black pictures of the family done in ink, under glass. I always was struck with that one of Jonathan Keys, it did look exactly like Hannah — just so set and stubborn about the mouth. Poor Hannah, she has had her day though. I have often heard my mother say that Hannah was the prettiest girl in Titusville when she was sixteen, though she was always that stiff. She was sixteen just before she went down to Salem.'

      Here was an opening, and Nan plunged in.

      'I heard something about that: did n't she meet an old sea-captain down there and come near marrying him?'

      'I do n't know how near she came to marrying him, I know he never came to Titusville. Now I wonder how you ever came to hear that old story; it seems a hundred years ago since my mother told me.'

      'Here we be!' called out Mr. Briggs, as he stopped his horse with the soothing down-east osh-sh-sh.

      Beyond them yawned the black pit where the cellar of the Keys house had been; the ashes still guarded the mystery of the Little Room.

      'My! but do n't it look mournful!' ejaculated Widder Luke, and then she continued: 'My mother said 't was rumored round Titusville that Hannah had caught a beau down to Salem. Of course that made a stir and folks wanted to know all the particulars, but all they could find out by hook or by crook was that 't was a sea-captain, and that he was after his third wife, having buried his two others, and that he had asked Hannah to marry him; he gave her lots of heathenish stuff that he had brought from India for his first wife. They couldn't seem to find out much more than that, when suddenly Hannah came home, without any warnin'; she brought an extry trunk back with her, but she did look dreadful peakid; she was sort of pale, and her eyes had a look just like her Grandfather Keys'; she had n't never looked like any of the Keyses before. She did n't let on that anything had happened, and she went everywhere just the same, and nobody knew what she had brought home in that extry trunk, till one day, when the family had all gone to meetin', Nancy Stack — she was Hannah's mother's sister — she went and peeked in the trunk and she saw a lot of trash, sea-shells and queer sorts of calico; but just as she went to lift the tray to see what else there was, she heard the folks comin', so she shut it up quicker'n lightnin'; 't was a snap-lock and her apron got caught; she could n't take time to open it, so she just tore off a piece of the hem to get away, meanin' to go and get the scrap out some other time; but Hannah must have been in the habit of goin' to that trunk, and before night she found the checked gingham caught in the lid, and Nancy Stark she left very sudden that afternoon and did n't never set foot in the house again. It's queer how it all comes back to me. I s'pose it's seein' the house gone and knowin' how Hannah was took last night.'

      'Oh, do tell us more,' said Rita, breathlessly. 'We know Mrs. Grant, their niece, and it is all so interesting.'

      'Wall, folks is generally interested in what they are interested in, but I do n't know that there's much more to tell. The captain he never turned up to get his third wife. Nancy Stark she died, and Hannah and Maria here always lived up there alone since the old folks died, and a pretty lonesome spot it was, to be sure.'

      'Did anybody ever dare to ask Miss Hannah about the captain?'

      'No, I guess not; folks up nere mind their own business pretty much.'

      There was a silence after this rebuke; but Nan, who always began to hold on when other people let go, said:

      'I heard once that they had some beautiful china in the china-closet, some that had belonged to their grandmother.'

      Nobody volunteered any remark about this. Mr. Briggs had got out and was poking round with a stick in the ashes.

      Nan persisted:

      'Did you ever see the china?'

      'I did' said Jane Peebles, 'sights of times.'

      'What kind was it?'

      'Oh, just blue willer pattern, — but there was sights of it.'

      'Then they did n't have any other kind, white with a gilt edge, for instance?'

      'Wall, up here, blue willer, if it's the real old kind, is considered good 'nough for most folks.'

      'Why, of course; I only wish I had any half so nice,' said Rita, politely.

      'Be you a chaney collector?' asked Widder Luke, with a defiant note.

      'Not at all, oh no; but I do wish we could find out whether they ever did have a gilt-edged set.'

      'Sakes alive! if you really want to know particular, I should n't make any bones myself about asking Maria. I should like her to know I don't bear any grudge against 'em, though we did have a fallin'-out about that jam, Hannah and me, come ten years ago next August. I should n't mind showin' I had friendly interest in them — now, they're in trouble.'

      The ruins of the old house looked small and insignificant in the broad sunshine. The poplars were shrivelled by the fire, and the thicket of roses was blackened and trampled; it was as dehumanized as if no one had lived there for a century.

      Mr. Briggs came back to the wagon and said, briskly:

      'Wall! where 'll you go next?'

      Rita and Nan hesitated; then Rita said:

      'Do you suppose Miss Maria would like to see us? We met her niece just before she sailed for Europe. She asked us to call and give her aunts some messages, but if you think they are too much broken down by the fire and all —"

      'Oh, no; it will do Maria good — it's no use cryin' over spilt milk, or burnt houses for that matter, and I guess you could look at Hannah too; she can 't speak, I hear it said, but she lies right in the bed off of the livin'-room, and most everybody goes in to look at her.'

      'The theatre is nowhere,' whispered Nan to Rita; 'but is n't it ghastly!'

      Miss Maria sat in state in the front room at the Fifes'; her black dress, borrowed from a neighbor, was large for even her plump figure, and it had a tendency to make her look as if she had been ill for a long time and had grown thin; her face was pale with the recent excitement, and wore the air of one who was waiting; she sat quite erect in the rocking-chair, with her plump hands folded on her lap; there was an appealing look in her eyes — she missed Hannah; there was no one to give her a pattern for thought or act. Neighbors passed in and out, and there was something so passive in Maria's look that they talked of her freely as she as if she were not there. There was plenty of sympathy for her, but it was swept out of sight by the tide of curiosity and detail, — how the house had caught fire; who had seen it first; how Hannah slept so heavily she could not be roused for a long time; how it hap pened that the well was so low; how the pump-handle broke; how the men tried to save something, but how little had been got out! and then, 'how bad Hannah looks,' and how old Simeon Bissell lived ten years after his stroke, and Hannah was younger than he, and the Keyses were a long-lived family.

      They passed in and out of Hannah's room, Lucinda Fife asking each new-comer to 'just step in and look at Hannah!'

      Borne along by their sympathy and curiosity, Rita and Nan went in and looked on poor Hannah, stiff and uncompromising as of old, lying in her unwonted bed. She eyed them with her impenetrable gray gaze, and it was evident that the mystery of the Little Room would never be revealed by her, even if one could be bold enough to storm that granite citadel. They talked with Maria. She heard the messages from her niece in gentle silence. Rita took her passive hand and tried to tell her how they sympathized with her in her troubles, and to explain how it was they had happened to come at this time, but it evidently did not get below the surface of Maria's consciousness. She seemed most taken with Nan, however, and to like to have her near her. Just before they left her, Rita ventured to ask if any of their gilt-edged china was saved.

      'No, I guess not,' said Maria.

      'Did they save the blue-chintz sofa?' impetuously asked Nan.

      'No, I did n't hear as they did.'

      'You did have a gilt-edged china set, did n't you?' said Nan.

      'And a blue sofa?' persuaded Rita.

      'I do n't seem to remember anything much,' said Maria, with an appealing glance towards the room where Hannah lay. It would be barbarity to press her further just then.

      Rita and Nan went away — not to the Adirondacks, however, but to spend a few days with Jane Peebles, who gladly acceded to their petition to be boarded there for a time.

      'Miss Peebles, where is that man Hiram who always lived at the Keys'?' asked Rita, as Jane helped them to apple-sauce and ginger bread at supper.

      'Hiram? I guess he 's pretty well tuckered out, what with the fire and Hannah's stroke; he come over here this mornin' and wanted a piece of my huckleberry pie; he said he could n't seem to relish any other food; he always did set a great store by my pie; it wa n't any better than what Hannah made, so far as I could see, but he always 'lotted on havin' the corner-piece when he brought me eggs from the farm.'

      Miss Jane's secret was not so hard to discover as was the secret of the Little Room.

      'I would like to talk with Hiram,' said Nan.

      'Oh, Hiram he 'll talk till doomsday, once set him goin', and say pretty smart things too, for a man.'

      'Hiram, can 't you tell us something about the old house?' asked Nan the next morning, as Hiram rose from the kitchen table where he had been taking the solace of a corner-piece of Jane's huckleberry pie.

      'That depends,' said Hiram, 'upon what you want to know. I s 'pose I can tell as much as anybody.'

      'What we really want to know,' said Rita, candidly, 'is whether there was a closet or a little room on the north side of the Keys house, between the front and the back rooms.'

      Hiram rubbed his ear carefully and began in a judicial way:

      'When Jonathan Keys first built that house, some time way back in 1700, he planned to have —'

      'Jane Peebles! Jane Peebles! you 're wanted right off, up to the Fifes', and Hiram too; Hannah she's took worse, and Maria she's no more use than a babe unborn. I 'm on my way up there now,' concluded the Widder Luke, as she hurried up the hill.

      When Rita and Nan went to say good-bye to Maria, a few days later, Maria clung to them. She had begun to like these new friends who had taken it upon themselves to try and do for her what Mrs. Grant would have done had she been there. She followed them to the door, and said, in a whisper:

      'I asked Hannah, only the day before her last shock, whether she did have any gilt-edged china, and she sort of nodded. Then I asked her if we had a blue sofy, and she nodded again; but come to think it over by myself, I do n't think it really meant anything, because you know Hannah could n't do anything else but nod after she had that first stroke; she couldn't shake her head; but I thought I would tell you, you have been so kind and you seemed so interested.'

      Out on the stone wall at the Corners Nan and Rita sat and laughed and cried; the tragedy and the comedy appealed to them, and not even when Nan said, as they walked down to Jane Peebles' house, 'All the same, I saw the Little Room,' and Rita said, 'I saw the china-closet, did they feel any bitterness.

      'Good-bye,' said Hiram; 'I 'm real glad you came, and I want you to tell Miss Grant, when you write to her, that Hiram — she 'll remember Hiram fast enough — Hiram is going to marry Jane Peebles, and that Maria sha n't never want for a home so long as Jane can make huckleberry pies.'

      'Oh, we are so glad; and you will send us a piece of wedding-cake, wo n't you?'

      'I should n't wonder,' said Hiram.

      'Won't you please tell us what you started to that time when Miss Hannah was taken worse so suddenly? we do so want to know whether there was a room or a china-closet there on the north side.'

      'I do remember now that I started in to tell you that; it wa n't much anyhow, only when their Grandfather Keys built the house he boasted that he intended to build the entire house of timber that had n't a knot in it. He spent ten years a-gettin' the timber ready, and when it was done he found that right in the front-room closet they had put a piece of board with a great knot in it. He was dreadful mad, but he kept it there all the same — on purpose, he said, to show folks it wa n't no use to set out to do anythin' perfect in this world.'

      'Then there was a china-closet —'

      'Wall, yes, there certainly was a closet there.'

      'Oh, Nan!' said Rita, as the cars moved away from where Hiram stood, 'he did n't say exactly what kind of a closet even then.'

      'No; but we can write to Jane and ask her to answer our questions with just yes or no. When she is Mrs. Hiram (I wonder if he ever had a last name) she will get it out of him if we can only interest her.'
  

      'Jane,' said Hiram that evening, 'if you could manage to wash on Saturday, so as to have an off-day on Monday, I don'no but we might as well be married then as any other time. I should feel sort of easier in my mind if Maria came down to live with us before they think her room is better than her company up to the Fifes', if Hannah should die.'

      'That 's so, Hiram. I 'll hurry round and fix things, and you better stop to-night and tell Maria that I 'll be real glad to have her come and live with us; and Hiram, I've been thinking that if the men folks did save that blue-chintz sofy —'

      'Wait a minute, Jane, I sort of want to tell you somethin'; 't aint anythin' I should want you to repeat, but it 's somethin' that sort of troubles me some. You see, Miss Hannah she 's always been good to me, and I should n't want to say anythin' to set folks a-talkin'; but Miss Hannah haint been exactly well for some weeks, and only the day before the fire she came to me and she says she thought 'twas about time she put that old trunk full of duds, the one she 's always kept in her closet, out of the way, and she guessed she 'd have me burn it up. I thought 't was most a pity to destroy the trunk — it was a real good one, and hadn't never seen no travel to speak of — and so I said I'd take the things out and burn 'em; that seemed to trouble her, and she was real short with me. She said I was no better than all the other folks, that I was pryin' round to see what she kep' in it. I sort of soothed her, and then she said she 'd been pestered most to death by folks always askin' her about some old blue chintz, and about a little room; and she guessed that if she could put that trunk out of sight, mebby folks would mind their own business and let her have some peace. So when Maria was out to the garden for some stuff for dinner, Miss Hannah she got me to help her carry the trunk out of her room and put it in the hall-closet; it wa n't no kind of a place to keep it, but I thought it was better to humor her a mite, seein' she was out of sorts.

      'In the middle of the night,' continued Hiram, dropping his voice and looking round to see that nobody was coming up the walk, 'in the middle of the night I smelt smoke, and thought right off that the barn must be a-burnin', but I could n't see no light; then I heard a sort of smothered noise, and I suspicioned right off what was the matter. I run to Maria's room and found her stumblin' round in the dark — her room bein' full of smoke she was sort of confused — and there was a tumble glare out in the hall. We found Miss Hannah out there wringin' her hands and callin' out: "Oh, the trunk will be burnt up, the trunk will be burnt up!" We could n't coax her to go away, and it did seem as she'd burn up in her tracks if I had n't just took her and carried her out. By that time the house was all blazin', and, though the folks began to come, it wa n't no use — it had to go. Hannah she was all dressed, and I do n't believe she had been to bed.'

      'You do n't think she set the house afire, Hiram?'

      'No, not a-meanin' to; but what I think is that she felt lonesome without that trunk, and so she went down to the hall-closet when she thought we was asleep, and either she dropped her candle or else the things that hung in the closet caught fire, and she did n't see it till 't was too late, and then she was so fearful that the trunk would burn she would n't go away.'

      'What was in the trunk?'

      Hiram shuffled from one foot to the other, then hesitated a little, and said:

      'Jane, I 've been comin' to see you a good many years, most ever since we was young, and yet we haint never exactly spoke of gittin' married till lately; but they aint so slow down in the city, and I guess Hannah sort of expected to git married to that sea-captain down to Salem. Anyways, whatever she kept in that trunk it came from Salem, and I guess 't was some stuff he gave her.'

      'You do n't say so, all these years!'
  

      In Paris, Mrs. Grant, with her husband, sat over the breakfast coffee in their little parlor in the Hotel St. Romain. The window opened on the balcony overhanging the Rue St. Roch. From the narrow street below floated the cry, 'Les moules, les moules?' mingled with the clap, clap of the horses' hoofs on the asphalt below. The concierge sang as he swept the sidewalk before the door, and the newsboys cried, with their plaintive intonation, 'Le Figaro, Le Figaro! Le P'tit Journal!'

      'Roger,' said Mrs. Grant, 'I had such a curious dream last night. I suppose I must have been asleep, but I seemed to be awake, when suddenly I saw Aunt Hannah standing at the foot of my bed, just between the two posts. She stood quite still, and her eyes were fixed on me with her peculiar expression of reserve, but also as if she had an intense desire to speak. I was just going to cry out, "Why, Aunt Hannah, is that you?" when suddenly I felt very passive, and as if a change was going on. The curtains of my bed moved back slowly, and I was again in that mysterious little room. I seemed to see either myself or my mother, I could not tell which it was, as a little girl, lying on the sofa; it was that same blue-chintz sofa I told you about; everything in the room was exactly as I remember seeing it when I was a child, even to the shell and the book on the shelf.

      'I can 't express to you how it was that I saw the little girl lying there; it was as if my mind was compelled by some other mind to see the little girl and the little room; and all the time I did not know whether it was my mother or myself as a child that I was looking at, and I could feel all the time my Aunt Hannah's gray eyes, though I could not see her while the vision of the little room lasted.

      'It was some minutes before the scene began to fade, and it did so very gradually, just as it came: first, the roses and blue morning-glories on the paper began to waver and grow indistinct; then one object after another trembled and faded. It was exactly as if something outside of myself compelled me to see these things; and then, as the pressure of that other will was removed, the impression gradually disappeared. The last to go was the figure of the little girl, but she too faded; the bed-curtains seemed to evolve out of the walls of the room, and I was lying on my bed; but Aunt Hannah still stood between the footposts, with her eyes fixed on mine. Then came the impression that she could not speak, but that she wanted to convey some thought to me; and then these words came to me — not as if a voice spoke them, but as if they were being printed on my mind or consciousness:

      '"Margaret, you must not worry any more about the Little Room, it has no connection with you or your mother, and it never had any: it all belongs to me. I am sorry that my secret ever troubled anyone else; I tried to keep it to myself, but sometimes it would get out. There 'll never be any Little Room to trouble anybody else any more."

      'All the time I was hearing these words I felt Aunt Hannah's eyes; and then she began to move backward, slowly, and she seemed to vanish down a long, long distance, till I lost sight of her. The last thing I saw was her gray eyes fastened on my face. I awoke, and found myself sitting up, with my head bent forward, looking right between the foot-posts of the bed.'

      'Your Aunt Hannah seems to be more fond of travelling than she used to be. Paris is further from Titusville than Brooklyn,' said Mr. Grant, lightly.

      'Oh, don't, Roger, don't! I think Aunt Hannah must be dead."