It was still dusk when she passed the cottage on her journey out, and the beloved roof, with its deep eaves, stood darkly against the cold grey dawn. A thin column of smoke wavered upward in the dank air. Joanna held a letter in her hand, directed to herself, which she had got at the post-office; and the temptation was strong to go in and strike a light and read it before she went on her way. She received a letter so seldom! But then every other letter entrusted to her would be delayed; and who could tell what might be the consequences if she was unfaithful to her charge? Besides, Amos would be worried. She passed by steadily, giving a loving nod to the old home under whose roof her only two beloved ones were sleeping. It was not until she reached the end of her journey, and had delivered the last bag at the village post-office, that she sat down in the shed where Amos was wont to work as a cobbler, and took up the letter. She read the outer inscription to herself solemnly, and carefully opened the blue envelope. It was dated from Norton, and began with the word "Madam!" "Oh, it's a mistake," cried Joanna, half aloud. "Nobody never called me Madam!" But the address was plainly "Mrs. Amos Terry." "There's nobody else of that name in our place," she reflected, and went on slowly spelling her way through the letter. It was to the effect, expressed in formal phraseology, that her cousin, the third beneficiary under the tontine by which her cottage was held, being now dead, the freehold fell to the original owner; and the writer of the letter, being his agent, was instructed to give her immediate notice to deliver up the cottage in good and tenantable repair. Joanna read and re-read the letter. She was an intelligent woman, but at first she could not grasp the meaning in its full bitterness. No word had come to her of her cousin's illness and death. It was true they did not correspond except on the quarter-days when she sent the rent and he acknowledged it. By-and-by her brain began to act clearly. If her cousin was really dead, a man not much more than forty years of age, then, of course, the tontine was ended, and the cottage was hers no longer. At the thought of it, her heart died within her.