The girl reached up her hands and touched the Little Gray Lady’s cheek, whispering:     

       “But aren’t you very, very lonely. Cousin Annie?”      

       “Yes, sometimes.”      

       For a moment Kate remained silent, then she asked in a faltering voice through which ran a note almost of terror:     

       “Do you think I shall ever be like—like—that is—I shall ever be—all alone?”      

       “I don’t know, dearie. No one can ever tell what will happen. I never thought twenty years ago I should be all alone—but I am.”      

       The girl raised her head, and with a cry of pain threw her arms around the Little Gray Lady’s neck:     

       “Oh, no!—no! I can’t bear it!” she sobbed! “I’ll tell Mark! I’ll send for him—to-night-before I go to bed!”      

  

       III     

       It was not until Kate Dayton reached her father’s gate that the spell wrought by the flickering firelight and the dim glow of the ghostly candle wore off. The crisp air of the winter night—for it was now quite dark—had helped, but the sight of Mark’s waiting figure striding along the snow-covered path to her home and his manly outspoken apology,       “Please forgive me, Kate, I made an awful fool of myself,” followed by her joyous refrain, “Oh, Mark! I’ve been so wretched!” had done more. It had all come just as Cousin Annie had said; there had been neither pride nor anger. Only the Little Gray Lady’s timely word.     

       But if the spell was broken the pathetic figure of the dear woman, her eyes fixed on the dying embers, still lingered in Kate’s mind.     

       “Oh, Mark, it is so pitiful to see her!—and I got so frightened; the whole room seemed filled with ghosts. Christmas seems her loneliest time. She won’t have but one candle lighted, and she sits and mopes in the dark. Oh, it’s dreadful! I tried to cheer her up, but she says she likes to sit in the dark, because then all the dead people she loves can come to her. Can’t we 

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