the least bit! It's just the way it was when I left. How slowly trees grow! She appeared to be happy, buoyant. A shadow of melancholy, however, hovered over her heart. The sight of this house reminded her unpleasantly of the passage of time. She was twenty odd years older than she had been when she had gazed upon it last. Vaguely, the feeling revived that she had made a mistake in coming back.
Ascending the stone steps to the terrace, and then the other flight to the porch, they passed on through the entrance, barred only by an unfastened screen-door, into the gloomy hallway. Ella rapidly penetrated the wide double-doorway on the left to the library, lined to the ceiling on every hand with black-walnut bookcases (one of which appeared to contain a complete bound file of Harper's New Monthly Magazine) and then through to her father's old study, behind the library, which still preserved his work-desk, a dictionary on a revolving stand, and a great globe, marked with the continents and islands and oceans of the world. This room now was evidently employed as a sewingroom, for the floor was piled with neat heaps of denim garments, and a sewing-machine, from which the cover had been removed, stood in a corner.
The ladies of the Aid Society have been here today sewing for the poor, Lou explained, as she stooped to gather stray threads from the carpet. We do, she went on sententiously, a great deal of
