d one little low moan, that
seemed away down in her heart, made me shudder. 'I don't care for my own
sake,' she said, puttin' her arm across my neck; 'but what will your
father think o' me?'

"Then she sot the glass up afore her, and combed her hair half a dozen
different ways, but none on 'em suited. She didn't look like herself,
she said, nohow; and then she told me to climb to the upper shelf and
git down the fine shawl, and see if that would mend matters any.

"I fetched the ring too; but it wouldn't stay on a single finger; and so
she give it to me, smilin', and sayin' I might wear it till she got
well.

"I sot the house in order myself, with her a-tellin' on me some about
things. The two silver teaspoons was burnished up, and stuck for show
into the edge of the dresser; the three glass tumblers was sot forth in
full view; and the tin coffee-pot, so high and so narrer at the top, was
turned sideways on the shelf, so as to make the most on 't; and the
little brown earthen-ware teapot was histed atop o' that. We had a dozen
eggs we had been a-savin', for we kep' a hen on the ruf, and them I took
and sot endwise in the sand-bowl, so that, to all appearance, the whole
bowl was full of eggs; and I raly thought the appintments, one and all,
made us look considerable like rich folks.

"'Do go up to the ruf, Johnny, my child,' says my mother, at last, 'and
see what you will see.'

"She had sot two hours, with her shawl held just so across her bosom,
and was a-growin' impatient and faint like.

"She looked at me so eager, when I come down, I could hardly bear to
tell her that I could only just see the Dauphin a-lyin' out, and that
she looked black and ugly, and that I couldn't see nothin' furder. But I
did tell it, and then come another o' them little low moans away down in
her heart. Directly, though, she smiled agin, and told me to go to the
chest and open the till, and get the table-cloth and the pewter platter
that I would find there. 'We must have our supper-table shine its best
to-night,' she said.

"Agin and agin I went up to the ruf, but I didn't see nothin' no time
except the whaler a-lyin' a little out, and lookin' black and ugly, as
if there wa'n't no good a-comin' with her.

"At last evenin' fell, and then my mother crept to the winder, and got
her face agin the pane, and such a look of wistfulness come to her eyes
as I had never seen in 'em afore.

"She didn't say nothin' no more, and I didn't say no