When I was taken to see what remained of grannie, I experienced nothing
of the dismay which some children feel at the sight of death. It was as
if she had seen something just in time to leave the look of it behind
her there, and so the final expression was a revelation. For a while
there seems to remain this one link between some dead bodies and their
living spirits. But my aunt, with a common superstition, would have me
touch the face. That, I confess, made me shudder: the cold of death is
so unlike any other cold! I seemed to feel it in my hand all the rest
of the day.

I saw what seemed grannie--I am too near death myself to consent to
call a dead body the man or the woman--laid in the grave for which she
had longed, and returned home with a sense that somehow there was a
barrier broken down between me and my uncle and aunt. I felt as near my
uncle now as I had ever been. That evening he did not go to his own
room, but sat with my aunt and me in the kitchen-hall. We pulled the
great high-backed oaken settle before the fire, and my aunt made a
great blaze, for it was very cold. They sat one in each corner, and I
sat between them, and told them many things concerning the school. They
asked me questions and encouraged my prattle, seeming well pleased that
the old silence should be broken. I fancy I brought them a little
nearer to each other that night. It was after a funeral, and yet they
both looked happier than I had ever seen them before.




CHAPTER IX.