them, and I took father to look at them when all was done, and we
stood there, holding hands and looking at her lying there so sweet
and peaceful, and looking so good too, whatever you may think, with
all the trouble wiped off her face as if the Lord had washed it
already in His heavenly light.

Now, Ellen was buried in the churchyard, and Parson, who was always
a hard man, he would have her laid away to the north side, where no
sun gets to for the trees and the church, and where few folks like
to be buried. But father, he said, 'No; lay her beside her mother,
in the bit of ground I bought twenty years ago, where I mean to lie
myself, and Lucy too, when her time comes, so that if the talk of
rising again is true we shall be all together at the last, as
kinsfolk should.'

So they laid her there, and her name was cut under mother's on the
headstone.

Father didn't grieve and take on as some men do, but he was quieter
than he used to be, and didn't seem to have that heart in his work
that he always had even after she had left us. It seemed as if the
spring of him was broken, somehow. Not but what he was goodness
itself to me then and always. But I wasn't his favourite child, nor
could I have looked to be, me being what I am and she so sweet and
pretty, and such a way with her.

And father went to church to the burying, but he wouldn't go to
service. 'I think maybe there's a God, and if there is, I have that
in my heart that's quite enough keeping in my own poor house,
without my daring to take it into His.'