Belinda Lamb spoke first. She was a middle-aged woman, with a pretty
faded face. She wore her light hair in curls, which fell over her
delicate, thin cheeks, and her blue eyes had no more experience in
them than a child's, although they were reddened now with gentle
tears. She had the look of a young girl who had been out like a
flower in too strong a light, and faded out her pretty tints, but was
a young girl still. Belinda always smiled an innocent girlish simper,
which sometimes so irritated the austere New England village women
that they scowled involuntarily back at her. Paulina Maria Judd and
Ann Edwards both scowled without knowing it now as she spoke, her
words never seeming to disturb that mildly ingratiating upward curve
of her lips.

"I've come right over," said she, in a soft voice; "but it ain't true
what Henry said, is it?"

"What ain't true?" asked Ann, grimly.

"It ain't true you're goin' to have a funeral?" Tears welled up
afresh in Belinda's blue eyes, and flowed slowly down her delicate
cheeks, but not a muscle of her face changed, and she smiled still.

"Why can't I have a funeral?"

"Why, Ann, how can you have a funeral, when there ain't--when they
'ain't found him?"

"I'd like to know why I can't!"