harlotte," Barney sobbed. Charlotte bent over him, whispering
softly, smoothing his hair and cheek with her tender hand.

Caleb had gone for the doctor and Rebecca while they tried to restore
Deborah, and had given the alarm on the way. Some women came hurrying
in with white faces, staring curiously even then at Barney and
Charlotte; but she never heeded them, except to answer in the
affirmative when they asked, in shocked voices, if Deborah was dead.
She went on soothing Barney, as if he had been her child, with no
more shame in it, until he raised his white face from her breast of
his own accord.

"Oh, Charlotte, you will stay to-night, won't you?" he pleaded.

"Yes, I'll stay," said Charlotte. Young as Charlotte was, she had
watched with the sick and sat up with the dead many a time. So she
and the doctor's wife watched with Deborah Thayer that night. Rebecca
came, but she was not strong enough to stay. The next day Charlotte
assisted in the funeral preparations. It made a great deal of talk in
the village. People wondered if Barney would marry her now, and if
she would sit with the mourners at the funeral. But she sat with her
father and mother in the south room, and time went on after Deborah
died, and Barney did not marry her.

Chapter XII

A few days after Deborah's funeral Charlotte had an errand at the
store after supper. When she went down the hill the sun had quite
set, but there was a clear green light. The sky gave it out, and
there seemed to be also a green glow from the earth. Charlotte went
down the hill with the evening air fresh and damp in her face. Lilacs
were in blossom all about, and their fragrance was so vital and
intense that it seemed almost like a wide presence in the green
twilight.

She reached Barney's house, and passed it; then she came to the
Thayer house. Before that lay the garden. The ranks of pease and
beans were in white blossom, and there was a pale shimmer as of a
cobweb veil over it.

Charlotte had passed the garden when she heard a voice behind her:

"Charlotte!"

She stopped, and Barney came up.

"Good-evening," said he.

"Good-evening," said Charlotte.

"I saw you going by," said Barney. Then he paused again, and
Charlotte waited.

"I saw you going by," he repeated, "and--I thought I'd like to speak
to you. I wanted to thank you for what you did--about mother."

"You're very welcome," replied Charlotte.

Barney ground a stone beneath his heel. "I sha'