"Lenora, how can you thus trifle with my feelings? Don't you see that
my trouble is killing me?" said the greatly distressed lady.

"I don't apprehend any such catastrophe as that," answered Lenora.
"You found the weeds of Widow Carter easy enough to wear, and those of
Widow Hamilton won't hurt you any worse, I imagine."

"Lenora," groaned Mrs. Hamilton, "may you never know what it is to be
the unhappy mother of such a child!"

"Amen!" was Lenora's fervent response, as she glided from the room.

For three days the body of Mr. Hamilton lay upon the marble center
table in the darkened parlor. Up and down the long staircases, and
through the silent rooms, the servants moved noiselessly. Down in the
basement Aunt Polly forgot her wonted skill in cooking, and in a
broken rocking-chair swayed to and fro, brushing the big tears from
her dusky face, and lamenting the loss of one who seemed to her "just
like a brother, only a little nigher."

In the chamber above, where six weeks before Carrie had died, sat
Margaret--not weeping; she could not do that--her grief was too great,
and the fountain of her tears seemed scorched and dried; but, with
white, compressed lips, and hands tightly clasped, she thought of the
past and of the cheerless future. Occasionally through the doorway
there came a small, dark figure; a pair of slender arms were thrown
around her neck, and a voice murmured in her ear: "Poor, poor Maggie."
The next moment the figure would be gone, and in the hall below Lenora
would be heard singing snatches of some song, either to provoke her
mother, or to make the astonished servants believe that she was really
heartless and hardened.

What Walter suffered could not be expressed. Hour after hour, from the
sun's rising till its going down, he sat by his father's coffin,
unmindful of the many who came in to look at the dead, and then gazing
pitifully upon the face of the living, walked away, whispering
mysteriously of insanity. Near _him_ Lenora dared not come, though
through the open door she watched him, and oftentimes he met the
glance of her wild, black eyes, fixed upon him with a mournful
interest; then, as if moved by some spirit of evil, she would turn
away, and seeking her mother's room, would mock at that lady's grief,
advising her not to make too much of an effort.

At last there came a change. In the yard there was the sound of many
feet, and in the house the hum of many voices, all low and subdued.
Ag