I had scarcely seated myself, when a tall woman, dressed in black, came in, and said, with a graceful, but rather stately manner-- "The Doctor, I believe ?" How familiar the voice sounded! And yet I did not recognise it as the voice of any one whom I had known, but rather as a voice heard in dreams.

Nor was the calm, dignified countenance on which my eyes rested, strange in every lineament.

The lady was, to all appearance, somewhere in the neighborhood of sixty, and, for an elderly lady, handsome.

I thought of my remark to Constance about the beauty and deformity of age, and said to myself, "Here is one who has not lived in vain." I arose as she spoke, and answered in the affirmative.
"You have come too late," she said, with a touch of feeling in her voice.
"Not dead ?" I ejaculated.
"Yes, dead.

Will you walk up stairs and see her ?" I followed in silence, ascending to the chamber which had been occupied by Mrs.Allen since the old Captain's death.