It was in November, a sunny Indian summer day. After their early dinner, Missy went out to roam, as she loved now to do, over the grounds and along the beach from which for so many months she had been shut out. The evergreens made still a greenness with their faithful foliage, the lawn looked like summer. It was an unusual season. There was a chill in the shut-up rooms, and it made her heart too sore to go often in the house, but outside she could wander for hours, and feel only a gentle pang, a soft patient sorrow for what was gone from her never to return. She had been walking by the narrow path that led through the cedars, wondering, now at the highness of the tide which was washing up against the bank, now at the mildness of the air that made it almost impossible to believe it was November, when the woman who took care of the house came running after her. Out of breath, she told her some one had just come up by the cars, to look at the house; would she give her the bunch of keys which she had put in her pocket instead of giving them back to her, a few minutes before? Missy felt a thrill of anger as she thought of some one to look at the house. This was indeed her natural enemy, for this time it must be a purchaser, for it was not yet in the market for rent. She gave the woman the keys, and then walked on, a storm of envy and discord in her heart. Yes, the one that should buy this house, she should hate. It was endurable while people only had it on lease, and came and went and left it as they found it. But when it should be bought and paid for, when trees could be cut down and new paths cut and changes made at the will of strangers, it would be more than she could bear. So few had come to look at it with a view to buying, she had unconsciously got into a way of thinking it would not be sold, and that this temporary misery of letting would go on, and she could yet feel her hold safe upon the trees and the shrubs and the familiar rooms and closets. Just as they were now, perhaps, they would remain for years, and she would have the care of them still, and grow old along with them; and some day the dark dream of alienation would dissolve and she would come back and die in her own room.