he was exhausted--he let me say the Lord's Prayer; I think it soothed
him, but one couldn't tell. He seemed half asleep when I left.
Oh!' she cried, laying her hand in a close grasp on Rose's arm, 'if
you had seen his eyes, and his poor hands--there was such despair
in them! They say, though he was so young, he was thinking of
getting married; and he was so steady, such a good son!'

A silence fell upon the three. Catherine stood looking out across
the valley toward the sunset. Now that the demand upon her for
calmness and fortitude was removed, and that the religious exaltation
in which she had gone through the last three hours was becoming
less intense, the pure human pity of the scene she had just witnessed
seemed to be gaining upon her. Her lip trembled, and two or three
tears silently overflowed. Rose turned and gently kissed her cheek,
and Agnes touched her hand caressingly. She smiled at them, for
it was not in her nature to let any sign of love pass unheeded, and
in a few more seconds she had mastered herself.

'Dears, we must go in. Is mother in her room? Oh, Rose! in that
thin dress on the grass; I oughtn't to have kept you out. It is
quite cold by now.'

And, she hurried them in, leaving them to superintend the preparations
for supper downstairs while she ran up to her mother.

A quarter of an hour afterward they were all gathered round the
supper-table, the windows open to the garden and the May twilight.
At Catherine's right hand sat Mrs. Leyburn, a tall delicate-looking
woman, wrapped in a white shawl, about whom there were only three
things to be noticed--an amiable temper, a sufficient amount of