that mrs gave both her hostess and me a warm feeling of enjoyment and expectation as if she had the power of social suggestion to all neighboring minds the two friends did not for at i hear their busy load and low by turns as they ranged from public to confidential topics at last mrs remembered me and giving my door a knock before she stepped in with the small in her wake she reached behind her and took mrs s hand as if she were and and her a gentle for i don t know yon m to take to each or not no no body can t tell whether yon h other but i expect yoa get along having seen the world oar ton can inform mis how we die island die other d f she a always country of pointed well acquainted with mother slip oat now an pat away the things an set my bread to rise if you u both me yoa can come oat an keep me company when yoa get ready either or both and mrs large and amiable disappeared and left as being not only with a subject of conversation but with a safe refuge in the kitchen in case of mrs and i sat down prepared to make the best of each other i soon discovered that she like many of the elder women of that coast had spent a part of her life at sea and was full of a good s curiosity and by the time we thought it discreet to join our hostess we were already sincere friends you may speak of a visit s setting in as weu as a tide s and it was impossible as mrs whispered to me not to be pleased at the way this visit was setting in a new impulse and refreshing of the social currents and seldom visited of memory appeared to have begun mrs had been the mother of a large family of sons and daughters � sailors and sailors wives and most of them had died before her a i soon grew more or less with the histories of all their fortunes and misfortunes and of an intimate nature were no more withheld from my ears than if i had been a shell on the mn was not without a touch of dignity and ei she was fashionable in hot dress but it was a curiously well provincial fashion of some years back in a wider sphere one might have called her woman of the world with her unexpected bits of modem knowledge but mrs s wisdom was an intimation of truth itself she might belong to any age like an of but while she always understood that entertaining pilgrim could not always understand mrs that first evening my friends plunged into a sea of reminiscences and personal news mrs had been staying with a family who owned the farm where she was bom and she had visited every sunny and shady field comer but when she said that it might be for the last time i detected in her tone something expectant of the which promptly offered country of tee pointed � � said mrs with sadness jou may say what you like bat i am one of nine brothers and sisters brought up on the old place and we re all dead but me your sister ain t gone is she why no ain t gone i mrs with surprise why i never heard of that i � � yes m she passed away last october in she had made her distant home in state but she was making a visit to her youngest daughter was the only one of my family whose funeral i was n t able to attend but t was a mere accident all the rest of us were settled right about home i thought it was very slack of em in not to fetch her to the old place but when i came to hear about it i learned that they d recently put up a very elegant monument and my sister was always great for show she d just been out to see the monument the week before she was taken down and admired it so much that they felt sure of her wishes so she s really gone and the funeral was up to i repeated mrs as if to impress the sad fact upon her mind a sail she was some years younger than we be too i recollect the first day she ever came to school t was that first year mother sent me to stay with aunt s folks and get my you fetched little to school one monday in a pink dress an her long curls and she set between you an me and got after a while so the teacher sent us home with her at recess she was scared of seeing so many about her there was only her and me and brother john at home then the older boys were to sea with father an the rest of us wa n t bom explained mrs that next fall we all went to sea together mother was uncertain till the last minute as one may say the ship was waiting orders but the baby that then was was bom just in time and there was a long spell of extra bad weather so mother got about again be fore they had to sail an we all went i remember my clothes were all left ashore in the east chamber in a basket where mother d took them out o my o drawers an left em ready to aboard she did n t have nothing aboard of her own that she wanted to cut up for me so when of thb pointed dress wore out she just me into a spare suit o john s and trousers i was n t bat eight years 