"Tell Miss Pinsett that Lucy Eastman and--and Mary Greenleaf have come to see her," they said to the elderly respectable maid. Then they went into the dim shaded parlor and waited. There were the old piano and the Japanese vases, and the picture of Washington which they had always laughed at because he looked as if he were on stilts and could step right across the Delaware, and they could hear their hearts beat, for there was a rustle outside the door--old Miss Pinsett's gowns always rustled--and it opened. "Why, _girls_!" exclaimed old Miss Pinsett as she glided into the room. Mary Leonard and Lucy Eastman declared, then and afterward, that she wasn't a day older than when they said good-by to her thirty-five years ago. She wore the same gray curls and the same kind of cap. Also, they both declared that this was the climax, and that they should have wept aloud if it had not been so evident that to Miss Pinsett there was nothing in the meeting but happiness and good fortune, so they did not. "Why, girls," said old Miss Pinsett again, clasping both their hands, "how glad I am to see you, and how well you are both looking!" Then she insisted on their laying off their things, and they laid them off because they always had when she asked them. "You've grown stout, Mary Greenleaf," said old Miss Pinsett. "I know I have," she answered, "and I'm not Mary Greenleaf, though I sent that name up to you--I'm Mary Leonard." "I wondered if neither of you were married." "I'm a widow, Miss Pinsett," said Mary Leonard, soberly. "My husband only lived three years." "Poor girl, poor girl!" said Miss Pinsett, patting her hand, and then she looked at the other. "I'm Lucy Eastman still," she said; "just the same Lucy Eastman." "And a very good thing to be, too," said Miss Pinsett, nodding her delicate old head kindly. "But," and she scanned her face, "but, now that I look at you, not quite the same Lucy Eastman--not quite the same." "Older and plainer," she sighed. "Of all the nonsense!" exclaimed old Miss Pinsett. "You're not quite so shy, that's all, my dear." "I'm shy now," asserted Lucy. "Very likely, but not quite so shy as you were, for all that. Don't tell me! I've a quick eye for changes, and so I can see changes in you two when it may be another wouldn't." Before the excitement of her welcome had been subdued into mere gladness, there was a discreet tap at the door, and the respectable maid came in with a tray of sherry-glasses and cake. Mary Leonard and Lucy Eastman looked at each other brimming over with smiles. It was the same kind of cake, and might have been cut off the same loaf. "Never any cake like yours," said Mary Leonard. "I remember you like my cake," said old Miss Pinsett, smiling; "take a bigger piece, child." They wanted to know many things about the people and the town, all of which Miss Pinsett could tell them.