He finished his dressing quickly, however, and hastened down-stairs.
In the parlour stood a tall, grey woman, clad in black, awaiting him. He advanced with a low bow and a look of inquiry. The lady looked earnestly in his face, coming forward to meet him with extended hand.
"You do not know me, Joseph?"
Joseph stared in surprise at so intimate a form of address; yet there was a tone in the voice which seemed not unfamiliar, though he could not connect it in his memory with any particular time, place, or person.
"I am changed, of course,"--it was still the lady who spoke,--"but so are you. Try if you cannot recall. It is five-and-twenty years since we last met."
"You have the advantage, ma'am."
"My name is Millicent Rolph. You know me now?"
"You? Do you mean that you are Lina's sister?"
"I am, Joseph--your sister-in-law. You cannot have forgotten our last meeting at the old home in New Orleans?"
"I can never forget the last time I met Millicent Rolph; but I trace no resemblance between you and her. She was a woman of thirty, dark-haired, large, handsome; you--do not resemble her."