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“Shall I light another candle, Cousin Annie?” shivered the girl, “or bring that one nearer?”

“No, it’s Christmas Eve, and I only light one candle on Christmas Eve.”

“But what’s one candle! Why, father has the whole house as bright as day and every fire blazing.” The girl sprang to her feet and stepped nearer the hearth. She would be less nervous, she thought, if she moved about, and then the warmth of the fire was somehow reassuring. “Please let me light them all, Cousin Annie,” she pleaded, reaching out her hand toward a cluster in an old-fashioned candelabra–“and if there aren’t enough I’ll get more from Margaret.”

“No, no–one will do. It is an old custom of mine; I’ve done it for twenty years.”

“But don’t you love Christmas?” Kate argued, her nervousness increasing. The ghostly light and the note of pain in her companion’s voice were strangely affecting.

The Little Gray Lady leaned forward in her chair and looked long and steadily at the heap of smouldering ashes; then she answered slowly, each word vibrating with the memory of some hidden sorrow: “I’ve had mine, dearie.”

“But you can have some more,” urged Kate.

“Not like those that have gone before, dearie–no, not like those.”

Something in the tones of her voice and quick droop of the dear head stirred the girl to her depths. Sinking to her knees she hid her face in the Little Lady’s lap.

“And you sit here in the dark with only one candle?” she whispered.

“Yes, always,” she answered, her fingers stroking the fair hair. “I can see those I have loved better in the dark. Sometimes the room is full of people; I have often to strain my eyes to assure myself that the door is really shut. All sorts of people come–the girls and boys I knew when I was young. Some are dead; some are far away; some so near that should I open the window and shout their names many of them could hear. There are fewer above ground every year–but I welcome all who come. It’s the old maid’s hour, you know–this twilight hour. The wives are making ready the supper; the children are romping; lovers are together in the corner where they can whisper and not be overheard. But none of this disturbs me–no big man bursts in, letting in the cold. I have my chair, my candle, my thoughts, and my fire. When you get to be my age, Kate, and live alone–and you might, dearie, if Mark should leave you–you will love these twilight hours, too.”

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.