For probably the first time in his married life Mr. Willis yielded to his feelings. “God-a’mighty, mother,” he said; “sometimes you don’t seem to have common sense! I reckon you’d best leave Patience Appleby be, if you know when you’re well off.” Then, frightened at what he had said, he walked on, hurriedly, swinging the lantern harder than ever. Mrs. Willis walked behind him, dumb. * * * * * The day was cold and gray. Mrs. Willis opened with difficulty the broken-down gate that shut in Patience Appleby’s house. “And no wonder,” she thought, “it swags down so!” There was a foot of snow on the ground. The path to the old, shabby house was trackless. Not a soul had been there since the snow fell—and that was two days ago! Mrs. Willis shivered under her warm shawl. Patience opened the door. Her slow, heavy steps on the bare floor of the long hall affected Mrs. Willis strangely. Patience was very tall and thin. She stooped, and her chest was sunken. She wore a dingy gray dress, mended in many places. There was a small, checked shawl folded in a “three-cornered” way about her shoulders. She coughed before she could greet her visitor. “How d’you do, Mis’ Willis,” she said, at last. “Come in, won’t you?” “How are you, Patience?” Mrs. Willis said, and, to her own amazement, her voice did not sound as stern as she had intended it should. She had been practicing as she came along, and this voice bore no resemblance whatever to the one she had been having in her mind. Nor, as she preceded Patience down the bare, draughty hall to the sitting-room, did she bear herself with that degree of frigid dignity which she had always considered most fitting to her position, both socially and morally. Somehow, the evidences of poverty on every side chilled her blood. The sitting-room was worse, even, than the hall. A big, empty room with a small fireplace in one corner, wherein a few coals were turning gray; a threadbare carpet, a couple of chairs, a little table with the Bible on it, ragged wall-paper, and a shelf in one corner filled with liniment bottles. Mrs. Willis sat down in one of the rickety chairs, and Patience, after stirring up the coals, drew the other to the hearth. “I’m afraid the room feels kind o’ coolish,” she said. “I’ve got the last o’ the coal on.” “D’you mean,” said Mrs. Willis—and again her voice surprised her—“that you’re all out o’ coal?” “All out.” She drew the tiny shawl closer to her throat with trembling, bony fingers. “But Mis’ Abernathy said she’d send me a scuttleful over to-day. I hate to take it from her, too; her husband’s lost his position and they ain’t overly well off. But sence my rheumatiz has been so bad I can’t earn a thing.” Mrs. Willis stared hard at the coals. For the life of her she could think of nothing but her own basement filled to the ceiling with coal. “I reckon,” said Patience, “you’ve come to hear my confessing-up?” “Why—yes.” Mrs. Willis started guiltily.