idn't want her around in garments of woe. Very gently he mentioned
the subject.

She glanced up out of sweet, entreating eyes. She had been standing by
him, looking over a very choice book of engravings.

"Yes," she returned. "Rachel spoke of it. And you know there are some
people who wear white, and some who put on yellow. Black isn't a nice
color. Do you like it?"

He shook his head.

"It is the inside of me that aches now and then, when I think I shall
never see him come sailing back, that I must be a long while without him
until I go to their land. But he must be very happy with mother, and
that is what I think of when I feel how hard it is;" and the tears stole
softly down her cheeks. "I have Rachel and you, and he said you would
always love me and care for me. But I try not to feel sorry, and if I
had on a black frock I couldn't help but think of it all the time. Then
I should be sorry inside and outside both, and is it right to make
yourself unhappy when you believe people have gone to heaven?"

She said it so simply that he was deeply moved. She had been alone with
her sorrow all this time, when they had thought her indifferent.

"You need not wear black--I wish you would not. I want you to get real
well and happy. And you are a brave little girl to think of them and
refrain from grief."

She wiped away the tears lest they should fall on the book.

"At first it was quite dreadful to me. I couldn't say anything. Then I
remembered how we used to talk of mother, as if she was only in the next
room. And then I sit here and think, when the sky is such a splendid
blue and there come little white rifts in it, as if somewhere it opened,
I can almost see them. Can't people come back for a few moments?"

"Only in dreams, I imagine."

"I can _almost_ see them. And they are so glad to be together. And I
know father says, 'Cynthia will come by and by.' But twenty years, or
thirty years, is a long while to wait."

Perhaps she wouldn't need to wait so long, he thought, as he noted the
transparent face.

"And now I should be sorry to go away from you," she said, with grave
sweetness.

"I think your father meant you should stay a long while with me when he
gave you to me;" and he pressed her closer to his heart.

So she did not wear mourning, to Elizabeth's very real displeasure.
There was no further talk about the school, but she did try to sew a
little and began the sampler. Cousin Eunice was her guide here. S