alone for the present, my dear; she has had a great shock. Trust to
nature. This cannot last long with a girl like Katy. It is half of it
over-fatigue, carried on from her school-keeping to add to the present
account." To me he said: "Katy, you may sew, if you like, but not
in-doors, I will carry your basket out for you into the arbor; and in
the afternoon I am going to take you to ride in the woods."

Our past selves are often a riddle that our present selves cannot read;
but I suspect the real state of the case was, partly that, as the Doctor
believed, I was for the time being exhausted in body and stunned in
mind, and partly that, in those young, impetuous days, grief was such an
all-convulsing passion with me, when I yielded to it, that to the utmost
of my strength I resisted it at the outset, and seldom dared suffer
myself to suffer at all. But, as he also believed, "this could not last
long"; and it did not.

One afternoon, as I sewed in the arbor, a sweet little girl, who had
been in Fanny's class in her Sunday school, stole into the garden and up
to me, looked wistfully into my face as if seeking some likeness there,
kissed my cheek timidly, laid a large nosegay of delicate flowers upon
my knee, and crept away as gently as she came. The flowers were all
white; and I saw at once that they were meant for Fanny's grave. I might
go there for the first time now, as well as at any other time. The
Doctor and his wife were out together, and no one was at home to
question me.

Fanny had been laid, I need scarcely say, just where she wished. My
guardian had driven me there early one morning to point out the place;
and we found the withered clovers in the grass. It had rained often
since. The swollen turf was nearly healed. I untied the flowers, and