Mrs. Champney was putting the very last things into her bag, and Mrs. Maxwell and Mrs. Deane sat watching her. The room in which she had lived for nearly four years was already strange and unfamiliar. The silver toilet articles were gone from the bureau. The cupboard door stood open, showing empty hooks and shelves. The little water colors of Italian scenes had vanished from the walls, and the books from the table. All those things were gone which had so charmed and interested Mrs. Maxwell and Mrs. Deane.

They were old ladies, and to them Jessica Champney at fifty was not old at all. With her gayety, her lively interest in life, and her dainty clothes, she seemed to them altogether young—girlish, even, in her enthusiastic moments, and always interesting. They loved and ired her, and were heavy-hearted at her going.

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