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few last cheery words, to fall into the coming hours of night.
"You see how you've spoiled me by kindness, Mrs. Wilton," Miss Lettie said. "I presume still further: I would like to see old Chloe; it is a long, long time since I've seen her. Would you let her come?" Sophie said that "it would renew Chloe's youth; she certainly would send her."
Good-byes were spoken, and we went down. Mr. Axtell was still treading the hall below. He thanked Sophie for her kindness to Miss Lettie, shook hands genially with Aaron, looked at me, and we were gone.
I carried Miss Lettie's message to Chloe. She lifted up those great African orbs of hers as she might have done to the Mountains of the Moon in her native land.
"Now the heavens be praised!" said the honest soul,--"what for can that icy lady want to see old Chloe?"
I had carried the message under cover of one from my own heart. I knew that Chloe had lived with my mother until she died. I knew that she must know something regarding Mary, my sister, to whom, in all my life, I had scarcely given one thought, who died ere I was wise enough to know her. And so I began by asking,--
"Am I like my sister who died, Chloe?"
She brought back her eyes from gazing upon the lunar mountains.
"I don't know's you are 'xactly; but somehow you did look like her, up-stairs to-day, when you had them white things tied on your head."
"Were you here when she died?" I asked.
"Oh, yes!"--old Chloe closed her eyes,--"it is one of the blessed things Chloe's Lord will let her 'member, up there;" and Chloe wiped her eyes, in memoriam.
"I don't remember her," I said.
"No, how should you? you were wee little then."
"What made her die, Chloe?"
"I reckon 't was because the angels wanted her more 'n me, Miss Anna."
"Was she sick, Chloe?"
"How queer you questions, Miss Anna! Of course she was sick; she drooped in the August heat; they didn't think she was very sick; the master gave h