"She refuses to let me speak your name to her. It would be hard to leave her, Ben, if--if she hadn't been so bitter and stern to me for the last year. I live in the same house with her and see nothing of her." "I thought Miss Matoaca's death might have softened her." "Nothing will soften her. Aunt Matoaca's death has hurt her terribly, I know, but--and this is a dreadful thing to say--I believe it has hurt her pride more than her heart. If the poor dear had died quietly in her bed, with her prayer-book on the counterpane, Aunt Mitty would have grieved for her in an entirely different way. She lives in a kind of stained-glass seclusion, and anything outside of that seems to her vulgar--even emotion." "How I must have startled her." "You startled her so that she has never had courage to face the effect. Think what it must mean to a person who has lived sixty-five years in an atmosphere of stained glass to be dragged outside and made to look at the great common sun--" A squirrel, running out from between the iron railing surrounding the square, crossed the pavement and then sat erect in front of us, his bushy tail waving like a brush over his ears. While she was bending over to speak to it, the Bland surrey turned the corner at a rapid pace, and I saw the figure of Miss Mitty, swathed heavily in black, sitting very stiff and upright behind old Shadrach. As she caught sight of us, she leaned slightly forward, and in obedience to her order, the carriage stopped the next instant beside the pavement. "Sally!" she called, and there was no hint in her manner that she was aware of my presence. "Yes, Aunt Mitty." The girl had straightened herself, and stood calmly and without embarrassment at my side. "I should like you to come with me to Hollywood." "Yes, Aunt Mitty." Pausing for an instant, she gave me her hand. "Until Wednesday, Ben," she said in a low, clear voice, and then entering the surrey, she took her place under the fur robe and was driven away. The week dragged by like a century, and on Wednesday morning, when I got up and opened my shutters, I found that our wedding-day had begun in a slow autumnal rain. A thick tent of clouds stretched overhead, and the miniature box in the garden looked like flutings of crape on the pebbled walk, which had been washed clean and glistening during the night. The clipped yew stood dark and sombre as a solitary mourner among the blossomless rose-bushes. At breakfast Mrs. Clay poured my coffee with a rigid hand and an averted face, and Dr. Theophilus appeared to find difficulty in keeping up his cheerful morning comments. "I'll miss you, Ben, my boy," he remarked, as he rose from the table; "it's a sad day for me when I lose you." "I hate to lose you, doctor, but I shan't, after all, be far off. I've bought a house, as you know, beyond the Park in Franklin Street."