MISS Sabrina sat by her accustomed window an hour after the return from the grave, waiting for Albert. The mourning dress, borrowed for the occasion from a neighbor, was cut in so modern a fashion, contrasted with the venerable maiden’s habitual garments, that it gave her spare figure almost a fantastic air. The bonnet, with its yard of dense, coarse ribbed crape, lay on the table at her elbow, beside her spectacles and the unnoticed Bible. Miss Sabrina was ostensibly looking out of the window, but she really saw nothing. She was thinking very steadily about the coming interview with her nephew, and what she would say to him, and wondering, desponding, hoping about his answers. The door opened, and Albert entered. “You wanted to see me, Aunt, so Annie said,” he remarked! gravely, in a subdued tone. She motioned him to a chair and answered, in a solemn voice curiously like his own: “Yes, there’s some things I want to say to you, all by yourself.” They sat for some moments in silence, the lawyer watching his aunt with amiable forbearance, as if conscious that his time was being wasted, and she, poor woman, groping in a novel mental fog for some suitable phrases with which to present her views. Under Albert’s calm, uninspiring gaze those views seemed to lose form, and diminish in intelligence as much as in distinctness. It had all been so clear to her mind--and now she suddenly found it fading off into a misty jumble of speculations, mere castles in the air. She had expected to present an unanswerable case lucidly and forcibly to her lawyer nephew; instead, it seemed increasingly probable that he would scout the thing as ridiculous--and, what was worse, be justified in so doing. So it was that she finally made her beginning doubtingly, almost dolefully: “Of course I dunno haow you feel abaout it, Albert, but I can’t help thinking something ought to be settled abaout th’ farm, while yer here.” “Settled? How settled?’’ asked Albert. There was a dry, dispassionate fibre in his voice which further chilled her enthusiasm. “Why--well--you knaow--what I mean, Albert,” she said, almost pathetically. It was so hard to know just how to say things to Albert. “On the contrary, I don’t in the least know what you mean. What do you want settled about the farm? What is there to settle about it?” “Oh, nothin’, ef yeh don’t choose to understand” said Miss Sabrina. Another period of silence ensued. Albert made a movement as if to rise, and said: “If there is’nt anything more, I think I’ll go down again.” There was an artificial nicety of enunciation about this speech, which grated on the old lady’s nerves. She squared her shoulders and turned upon her nephew. “Naow what’s the use of bein’ mean, Albert? Yeh dew knaow what I’m thinking of, jis’ ez well ez I dew! Yeh unly want to make it ez hard fer me to tell yeh as yeh possibly kin. I s’pose thet’s the lawyer of it!”