o."

She turned and ran indoors, then popped out again and sprang down the
steps.

"Miss Lav'lotte."

"Yes."

"Please don't forget the black hat and veil. Have it very heavy, and
very black, and very long, won't you? Oh pa, poor, poor pa!" and,
breaking into loud wailing, Lucy disappeared within.

The girl's manner puzzled Joyce. It seemed to her that Lucy attached
immense importance to so trivial a thing as a mourning veil, yet she
could not feel that this was all girlish frivolity and shallowness.
Something in the child's whole manner disputed such a suggestion.
Neither was her attitude towards Nate quite clear. She said she could
not forgive, yet instinctively Joyce felt that neither did she entirely
condemn. Could it be that deep within her she not only forgave, but
condoned, and that her almost feverish desire to appear in the trappings
of extreme woe was induced by the consciousness that she was not so
filled with resentment and horrified grief as she ought to be?

She was still revolving these queries when Dalton joined her and led her
around to the front, debouching so as to avoid the few scattered groups
still outside. He did not offer his arm, but kept close at her side,
ready to aid instantly should she make a misstep amid the unfamiliar
surroundings. Once he steadied her as she slipped from the single plank
that made the walk around the cottage, but instantly withdrew his
sustaining hand. Not until they were walking along the street, with its
electric lights at each intersection, did either speak. Then Joyce asked
suddenly,

"Will Lucy ever consent to see Nate again? Can the old-time friendship
help, in any degree, to soften her towards him?" George looked down upon
the sweet face beside him, so filled with sympathy and concern, and
checked some impulse to answer hastily. After a little he said in a
deliberate voice, as if weighing each word,

"Dear Miss Lavillotte, when death comes into a life like yours it means
grief, pure and simple. Other thoughts and interests are put aside.
There is no compulsion, no haste. They can wait. But it is not so with
the people we have been to see. There is so much besides the simple
sense of loss and bereavement. A thousand anxieties crowd so closely the
holier sorrow is half shut out. Sometimes, much as we shrink from
acknowledging it, the gain is more than the loss. Perhaps it leaves
fewer mouths to feed. Perhaps it takes away a continual menace and
terror. You