ing, when he came
gaily trotting into the garden, waving his tail quite happily. There
was no dust or blood on him. He rolled on the grass, too, and barked
and barked. But nobody seemed to hear him or notice him excepting I."

For a long while silence reigned in the lamp-lit room. When the other
children came in to say good night to their mother she received them
with an unusual tenderness. They went away; Athalie rose, yawning the
yawn of healthy fatigue:

"Good night, mamma."

"Good night, little daughter."

They kissed: the mother drew her into a sudden and almost convulsive
embrace.

"Darling, are you sure that nothing really dies?"

"_I_ have never seen anything really dead, mamma. Even the 'dead'
birds,--why, the evening sky is full of them--the little 'dead' ones
I mean--flock after flock, twittering and singing--"

"Dear!"

"Yes, mamma."

"When you see me--_that_ way--will you--speak?"

"Yes."

"Promise, darling."

"Yes.... I'll kiss you, too--if it is possible...."

"Would it be possible?"

The child gazed at her, perplexed and troubled: "I--don't--know," she
said slowly. Then, all in a moment her childish face paled and she
clung to her mother and began to cry.

And her mother soothed her, tenderly, smilingly, kissing the tears
from the child's eyes.

The next morning after the children had gone to school Mrs.
Greensleeve was operated on--without success.

CHAPTER III

The black dresses of the children had become very rusty by spring, but
business had been bad at the Hotel Greensleeve, and Athalie, Doris,
and Catharine continued to wear their shabby mourning.

Greensleeve haunted the house all day long, roaming from bar to
office, from one room to another, silently opening doors of unoccupied
chambers to peer about in the dusty obscurity, then noiselessly
closing them, he would slink away down the dim corridor to his late
wife's room and sit there through the long sunny afternoon, his weak
face buried in his hands.

Ledlie had grown fatter, redder of visage, whiter of hair and beard.
When a rare guest arrived, or when local loafers wandered into the bar
with the faint stench of fertilizer clinging to their boots, he
shuffled ponderously from office to bar, serving as economically as he
dared whoever desired to be served.

Always a sprig of something green protruded from his small tight
mouth. His pale eyes, now faded almost colourless, had become weak and
red-rimmed, and