or whether the excitement and the forced strength of the evening
before had exhausted the small portion of strength that was left, when
the late dawn lighted again those who watched, it found them sleeping,
and one was never to wake again in the world she had found so
disappointing to her ambitions, and so untrue to its fancied promises.


The doctor had promised to return early, but it was hardly daylight
before there was another visitor in advance of him. Old Mrs. Meeker, a
neighbor whom nobody liked, but whose favor everybody for some reason
or other was anxious to keep, came knocking at the door, and was let
in somewhat reluctantly by Mrs. Jake, who was just preparing to go
home in order to send one or both the brothers to the village and to
acquaint John Thacher with the sad news of his sister's death. He was
older than Adeline, and a silent man, already growing to be elderly in
his appearance. The women had told themselves and each other that he
would take this sorrow very hard, and Mrs. Thacher had said
sorrowfully that she must hide her daughter's poor worn clothes, since
it would break John's heart to know she had come home so beggarly. The
shock of so much trouble was stunning the mother; she did not
understand yet, she kept telling the kind friends who sorrowed with
her, as she busied herself with the preparations for the funeral. "It
don't seem as if 'twas Addy," she said over and over again, "but I
feel safe about her now, to what I did," and Mrs. Jake and Mrs.
Martin, good helpful souls and brimful of compassion, went to and fro
with their usual diligence almost as if this were nothing out of the
common course of events.

Mrs. Meeker had heard the wagon go by and had caught the sound of the
doctor's voice, her house being close by the road, and she had also