"At last it has arrived!" The old lady was very much older, but still the same. "You will again have a chance!" "Restored to your friends!" "The world!" "Your luxuries!" "Your comforts!" "Comforts! Luxuries!" At last the old lady had an opportunity to slip in a word. "And friends! You say right." There was a pause--a pause which held not a small measure of embarrassment. But the two visitors, although they were women of the world, and so dreaded an embarrassment more than they did sin, had prepared themselves even to stand this. The old lady standing there--she was very much thinner, very much bent, but still the same--appeared to be looking not at them, but at their enumeration. "Comfort!" She opened a pot bubbling on the fire. "Bouillon! A good five-cent bouillon. Luxury!" She picked up something from a chair, a handful of new cotton chemises. "Luxury!" She turned back her bedspread: new cotton sheets. "Did you ever lie in your bed at night and dream of sheets? Comfort! Luxury! I should say so! And friends! My dear, look!" Opening her door, pointing to an opposite gallery, to the yard, her own gallery; to the washing, ironing, sewing women, the cobbling, chair-making, carpentering men; to the screaming, laughing, crying, quarreling, swarming children. "Friends! All friends--friends for fifteen years. Ah, yes, indeed! We are all glad--elated in fact. As you say. I am restored." The visitors simply reported that they had found the old lady, and that she was imbecile; mind completely gone under stress of poverty and old age. Their opinion was that she should be interdicted. A DELICATE AFFAIR "But what does this extraordinary display of light mean?" ejaculated my aunt, the moment she entered the parlor from the dining-room. "It looks like the kingdom of heaven in here! Jules! Jules!" she called, "come and put out some of the light!" Jules was at the front door letting in the usual Wednesday-evening visitor, but now he came running in immediately with his own invention in the way of a gas-stick,--a piece of broom-handle notched at the end,--and began turning one tap after the other, until the room was reduced to complete darkness. "But what do you mean now, Jules?" screamed the old lady again. "Pardon, madame," answered Jules, with dignity; "it is an accident. I thought there was one still lighted." "An accident! An accident! Do you think I hire you to perform accidents for me? You are just through telling me that it was accident made you give me both soup and gumbo for dinner today." "But accidents can always happen, madame," persisted Jules, adhering to his position.