"At last an inspiration came to me. Down stairs, in the saddened empty study, sat little Miss Penstock, the village dressmaker, sewing on our gloomy black dresses. She lived all alone in a very small house near Mr. Maynard's mill. I remembered that I had heard her say how lonely she found it living by herself since her married sister, who used to live with her, had gone to the West. Since then, Miss Penstock had sometimes consented to go for a few days at a time to sew in the houses of her favorite employers, just to keep from forgetting how to speak,' the poor little woman said. But she disliked very much to do this. She was a gentlewoman; and though she accepted with simple dignity the necessity of earning her bread, it was bitterly disagreeable to her to sit as a hired sewer in other people's houses. She liked to come to our house better than to any other. We also were poor. My Aunt Abby was a woman of great simplicity, and a quiet, stately humility, like Miss Penstock's own; and they enjoyed sitting side by side whole days, sewing in silence. Miss Penstock had always spoken with a certain sort of tender reverence to Nat, and I remembered that he liked to be in the room where she sewed. All these thoughts passed through my mind in a moment. I sprang to my feet and exclaimed, 'That is it--that is it!' and I ran hastily down to the study. Miss Penstock was alone there. She looked up in surprise at my breathlessness and my red eyes. I knelt down by her side and took the work out of her hands. "'Dear Miss Penstock,' said I, 'would you rent part of your house?' "She looked up reflectively, took off her spectacles with her left hand, and tapped her knees slowly with them, as she always did when puzzling over a scanty pattern. "'I don't know, Dora, but I might; I've thought of it; it's awful lonely for me as 'tis. But it's such a risk taking in strangers; is it any friends of yours you're thinking of?' "'Nat and me,' said I, concisely. Miss Penstock's spectacles dropped from her fingers, and she uttered an ejaculation I never heard from her lips on any other occasion. 'Good Heavens!' "'Yes,' said I, beginning to cry, 'Nat and me! I've got to take care of Nat, and if you would only let us live with you I think I could manage beautifully.' Then I told her the whole story of Mr. Maynard's proposal. While we were talking Aunt Abby came in. The problem was no new one to her. Papa and she had talked it over many a time in the course of the past sad year. It seemed that he had had to the last a strong hope that Mr. Maynard would provide for us both. Poor papa! as he drew near the next world, all the conventionalities and obligations of this seemed so small to him, he did not shrink from the thought of dependence upon others as he would have done in health.