Mrs. Pendleton's conversation, however, had a somewhat wider range, for she had traveled. Just what topics were favored in those long undertone conversations with Mr. Barlow only Elsie Howard could have told, as the seat on the other side of the pair was occupied by the deaf old gentleman. There were many covert glances and much suppressed laughter, but neither of the two old maids opposite were able to catch the drift of the low-voiced dialogue, so it remained a tantalizing mystery. Mrs. Pendleton, when pleased to be general in her attentions, proved to be, as Mrs. Howard had said, "an acquisition." She spoke most entertainingly of Egypt, of Japan and Hawaii. Yet all these experiences seemed tinged with a certain sadness, as they had evidently been associated with the last days of the late Mr. Pendleton. They had crossed the Pyrenees when "poor Mr. Pendleton was so ill he had to be carried every inch of the way." In Egypt, "sometimes it seemed like he couldn't last another day. But I always did say 'while there is life there is hope,'" she would recall pensively, "and the doctors all said the only hope _for_ his life was in constant travel, and so we were always, as you might say, seeking 'fresh fields and pastures new.'" Then Mrs. Howard's gentle eyes would fill with sympathy. "Poor Mrs. Pendleton," she would often say to Elsie after one of these distressing allusions. "How terrible it must have been. Think of seeing some one you love dying that way, by inches before your eyes. She must have been very fond of him, too. She always speaks of him with so much feeling." "Yes," said Elsie with untranslatable intonation. "I wonder what he died of." "I don't know," returned her mother regretfully. She had no curiosity, but she had a refined and well-bred interest in diseases. "I never heard her mention it and I didn't like to ask." "Poor Mrs. Howard," Mrs. Pendleton was wont to say with her facile sympathy. "_So_ hard for her to have to take strangers into her home. I believe she was left without anything at her husband's death; mighty hard for a woman at her age." "How long has her husband been dead?" the other boarder to whom she spoke would sometimes inquire. Mrs. Pendleton thought he must have been dead some time, although she had never heard them say, exactly. "You never hear Elsie speak of him," she added, "so I reckon she doesn't remember him right well."