It was natural that it should be quiet for Mrs. Cairnes in her emptyhouse. Once there had been such a family of brothers and sisters there!But one by one they had married, or died, and at any rate had driftedout of the house, so that she was quite alone with her work, and hermemories, and the echoes in her vacant rooms. She hadn't a great deal ofwork; her memories were not pleasant; and the echoes were no pleasanter.Her house was as comfortable otherwise as one could wish; in the verycentre of the village it was, too, so that no one could go to church, orto shop, or to call, unless Mrs. Cairnes was aware of the fact, if shechose; and the only thing that protected the neighbors from thissupervision was Mrs. Cairnes's mortal dread of the sun on her carpet;for the sun lay in that bay-windowed corner nearly all the day, and eventhough she filled the window full of geraniums and vines andcalla-lilies she could not quite shut it out, till she resorted tosweeping inner curtains.