; "this can't be the end of the story."

"Sometimes it's best not to know the end of a story," said Aunt Jane
gravely.

But I heeded not the warning. I must know more of this girl who drew
to herself the love of men as the ocean draws the rivers. "Tell me a
little more about Miss Amaryllis," I pleaded.

But Aunt Jane was silent, and her eyes were sad. "There's mighty
little more to tell," she said at last, her words coming slowly and
reluctantly. "Miss Amaryllis died when her baby was born. The baby
died, too, and they buried both of 'em in the same grave. It was the
dead o' winter, and one o' the coldest winters we'd had for years. The
ground was froze solid as a rock, and the snow was nearly a foot deep.
It's hard enough, child, to lay the dead in the ground when the sun's
shinin' and the earth's warm and there's plenty of sweet flowers and
green sod to cover the grave with. But when it comes to cuttin' a
grave in the snow and the ice and layin' away the body of a child
that's bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh, or maybe a husband
or a wife that's nearer and dearer yet, why, there's no words, I
reckon, that can tell what a trial that is. I always used to pray
that my funerals might come in the spring or summer when everything
was warm and pretty, and, child, my prayer was answered. I never had a
winter funeral. I ricollect my baby brother dyin' when I was jest a
little child. It was towards the end o' winter, and the first night
after the funeral it rained, a hard, cold, beatin' rain, and mother
walked the floor all night and wrung her hands and cried at the
thought of her child's body lyin' in the grave and the cold rain
fallin' on it; and she never got riconciled to the child's death and
able to sleep right, till spring come and the grass got green, and she
could carry flowers and put 'em on its little grave.

"And that's the way Hamilton Schuyler was, only worse. He had the body
dressed in the dress she was wearin' at the dance the night he married
her, and when they put the corpse in the coffin in the big parlor, he
stayed by it for three days and nights, leanin' over and whisperin'
and smilin' and smoothin' her hair and pattin' the little dead baby on
its hands and face. Every time they'd say anything about buryin' the
body, he'd throw his arms around the coffin and carry on so terrible
that there was nothin' to do but let him have his way. He kept sayin',
'Maybe she's not dead. She may be sleepin' lik