"It's real handsome."

"Ain't it handsome? An' wa'n't the flowers on Mis' Perry's grave
elegant? Good-night. I'm goin' to have you an' your aunt come over
an' take tea to-morrow, an' then you can get acquainted with Flora."

"Good-night," said Francis, smiling, and the aunt and nephew went on
down the road. She carried something bulky under her shawl, and she
walked with a curious side-wise motion, keeping the side next her
nephew well forward.

"Don't you want me to carry your bundle, Aunt Jane?" Lois heard him
say as they walked off.

"No," the old woman replied, hastily and peremptorily. "It ain't
anything."

When Lois went into the house, her mother gave her a curious look of
stern defiance and anxiety. She saw that her eyes were red, as if she
had been crying, but she said nothing, and went about getting tea.

After tea the minister and his wife called. Green River was a
conservative little New England village; it had always been the
custom there when the minister called to invite him to offer a
prayer. Mrs. Field felt it incumbent upon her now; if she had any
reluctance, she did not yield to it. Just before the callers left she
said, with the conventional solemn drop of the voice, "Mr. Wheeler,
won't you offer a prayer before you go?"

The minister was an elderly man with a dull benignity of manner; he