where she had gone before. Coming at last to the old-fashioned gabled
house, where she had gone when site was a child, set in among stiff rows
of evergreens. A breathless quiet always hung about the place: a pure,
wholesome atmosphere, because pure and earnest people had acted out
their souls there, and gone home to God. He had led her through the
gate here, given her to drink of the well at the side of the house. "My
mother never would taste any water but this, do you remember, Lizzy?"
They had gone through the rooms, whispering, if they spoke, as though it
were a church. Here was the pure dead sister's face looking down from
the wall; there his mother's worn wicker work-stand. Her work was in it
still. "The needle just where she placed it, Lizzy." The strong man was
weak as a little child with the memory of the old mother who had
nursed and loved him as no other could love. He stood beside her chair
irresolute; forty years ago he had stood there, a little child bringing
all his troubles to be healed: since she died no hand had touched it.
"Will you sit there, Lizzy? You are dearer to me than she. When I come
back, will you take their place here? Only you are pure as they, and
dearer, Lizzy. We will go home to them hand in hand." She sat in the
dead woman's chair. _She_. Looking in at her own heart as she did it.
Yet her love for him would make her fit to sit there: she believed that.
He had not kissed her,--she was too sacred to the simple-hearted man for
that,--had only taken her little hand in both his, saying, "God bless
you, little Lizzy!" in an unsteady voice.

"He may never say it again," the girl said, when she crept home from
her midnight pilgrimage. "I'll come here every day and live it all
over again. It will keep me quiet until he comes. Maybe he'll never
come,"--catching her breast, and tearing it until it grew black. She was
so tired of herself, this child! She would have torn that nerve in her
heart out that sometimes made her sick, if she could. Her life was so