nothing to be afraid of, except
that Mr. Morgeson may walk into a ditch; will a knife keep us out of
that?"

"Knife is good--it kills," he said, showing his white, vegetable-ivory
teeth.

Verry and I sat up till they returned, at two in the morning. Abram
had died about midnight, distressed to the last with worldly cares.
"He asked," said father, "if I remembered his poor boy, whose chest
never came home, and wished to hear some one read a hymn; Temperance
broke down when I read it, while Fanny cried hysterically."

"I was freezing cold," she answered haughtily.

In the morning Verry and I started for Temperance's house; but she
waited on the doorstep till I had inquired whether we were wanted. I
called her in, for Temperance asked for her as soon as she saw me.

"He was a good man, girls," she said with emphasis.

"Indeed he was."

"A little mean, I spose."

I put in a demurrer; her face cleared instantly.

"He thought a great deal of your folks."

"And a great deal of you."

"Oh, what a loss I have met with! He had just bought a first-rate
overcoat."

"But Temperance," said Verry, with a lamentable candor, "you can come
back now."

"Can't you wait for him to be put into the ground?" And she tried to
look shocked, but failed.

A friend entered with a doleful face, and Temperance groaned slightly.

"It is all done complete now, Mis Handy. He looks as easy as if he
slept, he was _so_ limber."

"Yes, yes," answered Temperance, starting up, and hurrying us out
of the room, pinching me, with a significant look at Verry. She was
afraid that her feelings might be distressed. "The funeral will be day
after to-morrow. Don't come; your father will be all that must be here
of the family. I shall shut up the house and come straight to you. I
know that I am needed; but you mustn't say a word about pay--I can't
stand it, I have had too much affliction to be pestered about wages."

Verry hugged her, and Temperance shed the honestest tears of the day
then, she was so gratified at Verry's fondness. Before Abram had been
buried a week, she was back again--a fixture, although she declared
that she had only come for a spell, as we might know by the size
of the bundle she had, showing us one, tied in a blue cotton
handkerchief. What should she stay from her own house for, when as
good a man as ever lived left it to her? We knew that she merely
comforted a tender conscience by praising the departed, for whom she
had