thing Miss Sally and Miss Polly Graham had said to each other--said in
a soft, _crying_ way.

All at once she had a waked-up feeling; she sat bolt upright in bed
and thought, "Comp'ny." There were voices coming across the passageway
from the parlor. A light streamed, too; and when she stood faintly
bathed in its glow, she saw that Mrs. Preston was there--Mrs. Preston,
in the deep mourning she had vowed never to put off as long as her
beloved State lay with her head in the dust. But something in her lap
brightened it now, this shabby, soldier-widow black: a slim cross,
divine with green and white, as daintily delicate, with its tremulous
myrtle stars, as had been the lady things in Miss Sally and Miss Polly
Graham's store.

Mrs. Preston was saying that she was going to send it "anonymously."
Then she asked Ma if she knew that _he_ had had to attend to all the
arrangements himself. "Even the dress," went on Mrs. Preston, crying a
little; and Uncle John coughed in the deep, growly way gentlemen
always cough when they are ashamed to cry themselves.

Then they all began talking about funerals, saying to each other they
would like to go, but how _could_ they? Uncle John saying at last,
with more of the growly, coughy way, that no, no, they "couldn't flout
him."

It would be more cruel, far, far more cruel, said Uncle John, than to
stay away. Besides,--didn't the ladies know?--it was private.
"Though," the speaker went on, his worn, somber face lighting up with
something like a gleam of comfort, "I reckon that was to keep those
other white hounds away as well as the rest of us."