t over the earth wistfully, and at
the sky, thickly strewn with stars, which revealed her face. We heard
somebody coming up the back stairs.

"Temperance," said Verry.

"Are you in the dark, girls?" she asked, wringing her hands, when she
had put down her lamp. "What an awful Providence!" She looked with a
painful anxiety at Veronica.

"It is all Providence, Temperance, whether we are alive or dead," I
said. "Let us let Providence alone."

"What did I ever leave her for? She wasn't fit to take care of
herself. Why, Cassandra Morgeson, you haven't got off all your things
yet. And what's this sticking out of your bosom?"

"It is her handkerchief." I kissed it, and now Verry began to weep
over it, begging me for it. I gave it up to her.

"It will kill your father."

I had not thought of him.

"It's most nine o'clock. Sofrony Beals is here; she lays out
beautifully."

"No, no; don't let anybody touch her!" shrieked Verry.

"No, they shan't. Come into the kitchen; you must have something to
eat."

I was faint from the want of food, and when Temperance prepared us
something I ate heartily. Veronica drank a little milk, but would
taste nothing. Aunt Merce, who had been out to tea, Temperance said,
came into the kitchen.

"My poor girl, I have not seen you," embracing me, half blind with
crying, "How pale you are! How sunken! Keep up as well as you can.
I little thought that the worthless one of us two would be left to
suffer. Go to your father, as soon as possible."

"Drink this tea right down, Mercy," said Temperance, holding a cup
before her. "There isn't much to eat in the house. Of all times in the
world to be without good victuals! What could Hepsey have meant?"

"Poor old soul," Aunt Merce replied, "she is quite broken. Fanny had
to help her upstairs."

The kitchen door opened, and Temperance's husband, Abram, came in.

"Good Lord!" she said in an irate voice, "have you come, too? Did you
think I couldn't get home to get your breakfast?"

She hung the kettle on the fire again, muttering too low for him to
hear: "Some folks could be spared better than other folks."

Abram shoved back his hat. "'The Lord gives and the Lord takes away,'
but she is a dreadful loss to the poor. There's my poor boy, whose
clothes--"

"Ain't he the beatum of all the men that ever you see?" broke in
Temperance, taking to him a large piece of pie, which he took with a
short laugh, and sat down to eat. I could not help ex