Chloe's turban welcomed us first, then Chloe's self. Breakfast, that
morning, had a rare charm about it for me. I felt that I had a right to
it; in some wise it was a breakfast earned. Aaron looked melancholy; his
coffee was not charmful, I knew; the chemical changes that sugar and
milk wrought were not the same as when Sophie presided over the
laboratory of the breakfast-tray. I am not an absorbent, and so I
reflected Aaron's discomfort. He was disposed to question me for a
reason for Miss Axtell's aberration. I was not empowered to give one,
and was fully determined to impart no information until such time as I
could with honor tell all. Aaron desisted after a while, and changed
interrogation for information.

"We're to have a new sexton," he said.

"Why, Aaron?" I asked,--and, in my surprise, put sugar, destined for my
coffee, into a glass of water.

"Because Abraham Axtell has resigned."

"When?"

"This very morning."

"He will be sexton until you find another, will he not?"

"For one week only," he said.

I remembered that my pocket held the church-key. I could not send it to
him without exciting question. Aaron would surely ask how I came by it,