"Hush," said Caroline, with a glance of actual fear at the closed door.

"Nobody can hear with the door shut. I say again I think Henry ought to
be ashamed of himself. I shouldn't think he'd ever get over it, having
words with poor Edward the very night before he died. Edward was enough
sight better disposition than Henry, with all his faults."

"I never heard him speak a cross word, unless he spoke cross to Henry
that last night. I don't know but he did from what Rebecca overheard."

"Not so much cross, as sort of soft, and sweet, and aggravating,"
sniffed Rebecca.

"What do you really think ailed Edward?" asked Emma in hardly more than
a whisper. She did not look at her sister.

"I know you said that he had terrible pains in his stomach, and had
spasms, but what do you think made him have them?"

"Henry called it gastric trouble. You know Edward has always had
dyspepsia."

Mrs. Brigham hesitated a moment. "Was there any talk of
an--examination?" said she.

Then Caroline turned on her fiercely.

"No," said she in a terrible voice. "No."

The three sisters' souls seemed to meet on one common ground of