"There's not much to tell. Mr. Morgan has always lived here, and so has Miss Rood. He lives alone with a housekeeper in that fine house at the end of the street, and she entirely alone in that little white house over there among the apple trees. All the people who knew them when they were young are dead, gone away or moved off. They are relics of a past generation, and are really about as much shut up to each other for sympathy as an old married couple." "Well, why on earth aren't they married?" "People hereabouts got tired of asking that full thirty years ago," replied Lucy with a little shrug. "Even the gossips long since wore out the subject, and I believe we have all of us forgotten that there is anything peculiar about their relations. He calls on her two or three times a week, and takes her out driving on pleasant days; escorts her to places of amusement or social gatherings when either of them cares to go, which isn't often; and wherever they are, people take it for granted they will pair off together. He is never seen with any other lady." "It's very strange," said Mabel thoughtfully, "and I'm sure it's very romantic. Queer old couple! I wonder how they really feel toward each other, and whether they wouldn't like to be married?" A while after she suddenly demanded, "Don't you think Miss Rood looks like me?" Lucy laughed at first, but upon closer inspection of the fair questioner admitted that there might be some such resemblance as the shrivelled apples brought up from the cellar in spring bear to the plump, rosy-cheeked beauties that went down in October. If Mr. Morgan and Miss Rood, as they rode past, had chanced to overhear Mabel's question why they had not married, it would have affected them very differently. He would have been startled by the novelty of an idea that had not occurred to him in twenty years, but the blush on her cheek would have been one of painful consciousness.