When the work was finished, she folded it and laid it aside, then put away her thimble and thread. "When the guests come to the hotel," she thought—"ah, when they come, and buy all the things I've made the past year, and the preserves and the candied orange peel, the rag rugs and the quilts, then——"
Dying Embers
So Barbara fell a-dreaming, and the light of the dying embers lay lovingly upon her face, already transfigured by tenderness into beauty beyond words. The lamp went out and little by little the room faded into twilight, then into night. It was quite dark when she leaned over and picked up her crutches.
"Dear, dear father," she breathed. "He must never know!"
II
Miss Mattie
Miss Mattie was getting supper, sustained by the comforting thought that her task was utterly beneath her and had been forced upon her by the mysterious workings of an untoward Fate. She was not really "Miss," since she had been married and widowed, and a grown son was waiting impatiently in the sitting-room for his evening meal, but her neighbours, nearly all of whom had known her before her marriage, still called her "Miss Mattie."
"Old Maids"