ll. President and I peered after
them from the window, screening our eyes with our hollowed palms, and
flattening our noses against the icy panes; but in spite of our efforts
we could only discern dimly the shape of the umbrella rising like a
miniature black mountain out of the white blur of the fog. The long
empty street with the wind-drifts of dead leaves, the pale glimmer of
the solitary light at the far corner, the steady splash! splash! of the
rain as it fell on the brick pavement, the bitter draught that blew in
over the shivering geranium upon the sill--all these brought a lump to
my throat, and I turned back quickly into our cheerful little room,
where my untasted supper awaited me.

CHAPTER II

THE ENCHANTED GARDEN

The funeral was not until nine o'clock, but at seven my mother served us
a cold breakfast in order, as she said, that she might get the dishes
washed and the house tidied before we started. Gathering about the bare
table, we ate our dismal meal in a depressed silence, while she bustled
back and forth from the kitchen in her holiday attire, which consisted
of a stiff black bombazine dress and the long rustling crape veil she
had first put on at the death of her uncle Benjamin, some twenty years
before. As her only outings were those occasioned by the deaths of her
neighbours, I suppose her costume was quite as appropriate as it seemed
to my childish eyes. Certainly, as she appeared before me in her hard,
shiny, very full bombazine skirt and attenuated bodice, I regarded her
with a reverence which her everyday calico had never inspired.

"I ain't et a mouthful an' I doubt if I'll have time to befo' we start,"
she was saying in an irritable voice, as I settled into my bib and my
chair. "Anybody might have thought I'd be allowed to attend a funeral in
peace, but I shan't be,--no, not even when it comes to my own."

"Thar's plenty of time yet, Susan," returned my father cheerfully, while
he sawed at the cold cornbread on the table. "You've got a good hour an'
mo' befo' you."

"An' the things to wash up an' the house to tidy in my veil and bonnet.
Thar ain't many women, I reckon, that would wash up china in a crape
veil, but I've done it befo' an' I'm used to it."

"Why don't you lay off yo' black things till you're through?"

His suggestion was made innocently enough, but it appeared, as he
uttered it, to be the one thing needed to sharpen the edge of my
mother's temper. The three frowni