had happened. Adam, overcome with the agitations
and exertions of the day after his night of hard work, had fallen asleep
on a bench in the workshop; and Seth was in the back kitchen making a
fire of sticks that he might get the kettle to boil, and persuade his
mother to have a cup of tea, an indulgence which she rarely allowed
herself.

There was no one in the kitchen when Lisbeth entered and threw herself
into the chair. She looked round with blank eyes at the dirt and
confusion on which the bright afternoon's sun shone dismally; it was
all of a piece with the sad confusion of her mind--that confusion which
belongs to the first hours of a sudden sorrow, when the poor human soul
is like one who has been deposited sleeping among the ruins of a vast
city, and wakes up in dreary amazement, not knowing whether it is
the growing or the dying day--not knowing why and whence came this
illimitable scene of desolation, or why he too finds himself desolate in
the midst of it.

At another time Lisbeth's first thought would have been, "Where is
Adam?" but the sudden death of her husband had restored him in
these hours to that first place in her affections which he had held
six-and-twenty years ago. She had forgotten his faults as we forget the
sorrows of our departed childhood, and thought of nothing but the young
husband's kindness and the old man's patience. Her eyes continued
to wander blankly until Seth came in and began to remove some of the
scattered things, and clear the small round deal table that he might set
out his mother's tea upon it.

"What art goin' to do?" she said, rather peevishly.

"I want thee to have a cup of tea, Mother," answered Seth, tenderly.
"It'll do thee good; and I'll put two or three of these things away, and
make the house look more comfortable."

"Comfortable! How canst talk o' ma'in' things comfortable? Let a-be, let
a-be. There's no comfort for me no more," she went on, the tears coming
when she began to speak, "now thy poor feyther's gone, as I'n washed for
and mended, an' got's victual for him for thirty 'ear, an' him allays
so pleased wi' iverything I done for him, an' used to be so handy an' do
the jobs for me when I war ill an' cumbered wi' th' babby, an' made me
the posset an' brought it upstairs as proud as could be, an' carried the
lad as war as heavy as two children for five mile an' ne'er grumbled,
all the way to Warson Wake, 'cause I wanted to go an' see my sister, as
war dead a