Mary followed in silence, chilled through and through by this iron coldness. The room was chilly and meagre of comforts like its mistress. A home-made carpet, striped in red and green, but greatly faded by time, covered the floor. A tall, mahogany bureau, with a back-piece and top-drawers, stood on one side, and a long, narrow dining-table of black wood, with slender legs and claw-feet, grasping each a small globe, stood between the two front windows. Over these windows were paper curtains of pale blue, rolled up with strings and tassels of twisted cotton, just far enough to leave the lower panes visible. Half a dozen chairs of dark brown wood touched with green, stood around the room; and over the dining-table hung an antique looking-glass, in a mahogany frame, rendered black by time. Mary sat down by an end window that overlooked the garden, and peered through the little panes to avoid the steady gaze that the woman fixed upon her. A sweet-briar bush grew against the window; and she caught bright glimpses of marigolds and asparagus laden with red berries, through the fragrant leaves. All at once she started and turned suddenly in her chair. The woman had spoken. "Who are you?" was the curt question that aroused her. "I--I--ma'am?" "Yes, I mean you. What's your name?" "Mary Fuller, ma'am." "What brought you in these parts?" "I came with Isabel and Judge Sharp." "What for?" "To live with somebody, ma'am, I--I thought at first it was here!" "Where did you come from?" Mary blushed. Poor child! She had a vague idea that there was something to be ashamed of in coming from the Alms House. As she hesitated the woman repeated her question, but more briefly, only saying: "Where?" "From the Alms House!" Aunt Hannah's eyes fell. A faint color crept through the wrinkles on her forehead, and for a few moments she ceased to interrogate the child. But she spoke at length in the same impassive voice as before: "Have you a father?" "No, ma'am." "A mother?" "She is dead." "Who is Isabel?" "A little girl that was with me in"--she was about to say in the Alms House; but more sensitive regarding Isabel than herself, she changed the term and said, "that was with me in the carriage." "The carriage," repeated aunt Hannah, moving toward a window and lifting the paper blind, "did it take four horses to drag you and another little girl over the mountains?" "Oh! no, ma'am, there was a lady." "A lady! Who?" "A lady who lives down the river in a great square house, with a sort of short steeple on the roof." "What, Mrs. Farnham?" said the woman, dropping the blind as if it had been a roll of fire, while her face turned white to the lips, and a glow came into her eyes that made Mary's heart beat quick, for there was something startling in it, as the woman stood searching her face for the answer. "Yes, that is the name, ma'am." Aunt Hannah's lips grew colder and whiter, while the glow concentrated in her eyes like a ray of fire.