"Shall I knock?" said Anthony, glancing up at the blind house-front with an expression which said plainly enough "It won't be any use." "No, I'm going to get out. Here, help me! the other side, ninnyhammer! You have helped me out on the wrong side for forty years, Anthony Barker; I must be a saint after all, or I never should have stood it." The old lady mounted the granite steps briskly, and knocked smartly on the door with the top of her stick. After some delay it was opened by a grim-looking elderly woman with a forbidding squint. "How do you do, Keziah? I am coming in. You may wait for me, Anthony." "I don't know as Miss Dane feels up to seein' company, Mis' Tree," said the grim woman, doubtfully, holding the door in her hand. "Folderol!" said Mrs. Tree, waving her aside with her stick. "She's in her sitting-room, I suppose. To be sure! How are you, Virginia?" The room Mrs. Tree entered was gaunt and gray like the house itself; high-studded, with blank walls of gray paint, and wintry gleams of marble on chimneypiece and furniture. Gaunt and gray, too, was the figure seated in the rigid high-backed chair, a tall old woman in a black gown and a close muslin cap like that worn by the Shakers, with a black ribbon bound round her forehead. Her high features showed where great beauty, of a masterful kind, had once dwelt; her sunken eyes were cold and dim as a steel mirror that has lain long buried and has forgotten how to give back the light. These eyes now dwelt upon Mrs. Tree, with recognition, but no warmth or kindliness in their depths. "How are you, Virginia?" repeated the visitor. "Come, shake hands! you are alive, you know, after a fashion; where's the use of pretending you are not?" Miss Dane extended a long, cold, transparent hand, and then motioned to a seat. "I am well, Marcia," she said, coldly. "I have been well for the past fifteen years, since we last met." "I made the last visit, I remember," said Mrs. Tree, composedly, hooking a gray horsehair footstool toward her with her stick, and settling her feet on it. "You gave me to understand then that I need not come again till I had something special to say, so I have stayed away." "I have no desire for visitors," said Miss Dane. She spoke in a hollow, inward monotone, which somehow gave the impression that she was in the habit of talking to herself, or to something that made no response. "My soul is fit company for me." "I should think it might be!" said Mrs. Tree. "Besides, I am surrounded by the Blessed," Miss Dane went on. "This room probably appears bare and gloomy to your eyes, Marcia, but I see it peopled by the Blessed, in troops, crowding about me, robed and crowned." "I hope they enjoy themselves," said Mrs. Tree. "I will not interrupt you or them more than a few minutes, Virginia. I want to ask if you have made your will. A singular question, but I have my reasons for asking." "Certainly I have; years ago."