Mr. Freeland knocked loudly and entered. Before him in the clean, bare room, with its rag-carpets, mats, and pine furnishings, sat a little old woman, her hands folded in her lap, her head erect, her eyes fixed uncompromisingly on the door. He started as he saw her face; it was so changed from the time, two weeks or more ago, when he had delivered that admirable prayer for charity and loving kindness on the occasion when the Widow Sheldon had thrown the butter-plate at old Mis' Landers. Thin and sunken, with dark serried hollows under her still bright eyes--she had aged ten years in those weeks. "My sister, my poor, suffering, misled sister," began the pastor; but Harriet's eyes flashed ominously. "If you come to talk to me about that Holy Ghost, I ain't got nothin' to say," she declared, "an' if you think I'm goin' to say another word myself, you're mistaken. I'm a pore sinful woman, but I ain't goin' to be pestered t' death! I'm doin' the best I can 'bout it, an' I've prayed 'bout it, an' Mr. Dent an' a Papist, they both talked 'bout it till I nearly died. I don't see any more sense in it than I did before--not a morsel. So if that's what brought you, you might just as well start back this minute!" Her reverend guest stared at her dumfounded. Was this the little woman who had pressed his hand at the prayer-meeting and thanked him so piously, so meekly, for such "beautiful prayin'?" "You are greatly changed since I saw you last, Miss Blake," he said gravely. "Your spirit was gentler, your mind was more religiously inclined. I found you----" "You didn't find me pestered t' death," said Harriet briefly, somewhat mollified by his "Miss Blake." "I was led to believe that you were suffering, that you were in trouble," hazarded the pastor. Never in his somewhat self-sufficient life had he felt such difficulty in giving spiritual advice. Even to his thick-skinned personality it was deeply evident that this sharp-tongued little woman was in great trouble. Ordinarily, a certain facility for quotation and application made him a confident speaker, but to-day he felt impeded, held back by the self-control and patience of his listener. For he saw that she was patient; that she could say much more if she chose; that she was, beneath all her sharpness, alarmed and worried. His somewhat perplexed air, his evident memory of her earlier estate, his startled recognition of her changed appearance had the effect that nothing else could have had. Her hands twisted nervously in her lap, her mouth twitched, she dropped her eyes, and opened her lips once or twice without speaking. Suddenly, with a little gasp, she began: