ate, ready to be
lit when the master should come home.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE QUICK AND THE DEAD

When I reached home I found that my grandmother had been looking for me,
and Neil Doherty told me the reason. Word had come from Castle Clody
that Miss Champion's cousin was dead.

"You must go to her, Bawn," said my grandmother, sadly. "We must not
leave her alone, and she will not want me. You will spend the night with
her?"

Yes, I would do that, although I shrank from the prospect of death like
any other sensitive girl. It was not likely I would refuse to go to my
dear godmother in her hour of need; and I had an unacknowledged hope
that she might keep me with her, perhaps, so that I would be free of my
lover for a few days.

When she heard that I had come she came down to me where I was standing
by the fire in the morning-room warming my hands, for the first frost
of the season had come and the night was cold.

"Ah, good child," she said, "to come so quickly! Everything is done,
Bawn, and she is at rest. I shall miss her dreadfully. I don't know what
I shall do with my empty hands. I am too old to begin to love again."

Every one knew that Miss Joan had been querulous and bitter with her,
and it made me love and reverence her more than ever to hear the way she
spoke.

"Sit down, Bawn," she said, "sit down. You are going to stay with me,
kind child. I shall have the little room off my own prepared for you;
and we shall have our dinner here. It will be more cheerful than in the
dining-room."

I could not help noticing that though her eyes showed traces of much
weeping she yet wore a singularly tranquil and even radiant look, as
though good news had come to her. Indeed, the whole atmosphere of the
house seemed strangely peaceful.

A servant came in to set the table, and we went upstairs to the little
room within her own room where I was to sleep. A bright fire already
blazed in the grate, and Louise was busy putting out my things. The room
looked so cheerful with its chintz--a green trellis hung with roses on
a white ground--that one could not be gloomy and fearful in it, even if
I did not know that my dear godmother would leave the door between our
rooms open at night and would wake if I but stirred.

Louise helped me to put on the one black gown I possessed, which, as it
happened, was patterned with roses, a crepe de Chine fichu about the
neck, and I asked Louise to take it off and find me something