heabenly smile frozen on her face; but I
do misdoubts dese secrety marriages; I 'siders ob 'em no 'count. Ten to
one, honey, de poor forso'k sinner as married her has anoder wife
some'ers."

Without knowing it the old woman had hit the exact truth.

Hannah sighed deeply, and wondered silently how it was that neither
Dinah nor Jovial had ever once suspected their young master to be the
man.

Old Dinah perceived that her conversation distressed Hannah, and so she
threw off her bonnet and cloak and set herself to work to help the poor
bereaved sister.

There was enough to occupy both women. There was the dead mother to be
prepared for burial, and there was the living child to be cared far.

By the time that they had laid Nora out in her only white dress, and had
fed the babe and put it to sleep, and cleaned up the cottage, the winter
day had drawn to its close and the room was growing dark.

Old Dinah, thinking it was time to light up, took a home-dipped candle
from the cupboard, and seeing a piece of soiled paper on the table,
actually lighted her candle with a check for five thousand dollars!

And thus it happened that the poor boy who, without any fault of his
mother, had come into the world with a stigma on his birth, now, without
any neglect of his father, was left in a state of complete destitution
as well as of entire orphanage.

On the Tuesday following her death poor Nora Worth was laid in her
humble grave under a spreading oak behind the hut.

This spot was selected by Hannah, who wished to keep her sister's last
resting-place always in her sight, and who insisted that every foot of
God's earth, enclosed or unenclosed--consecrated or unconsecrated--was
holy ground.

Jim Morris, Professor of Odd Jobs for the country side, made the coffin,
dug the grave, and managed the funeral.

The Rev. William Wynne, the minister who had performed the fatal nuptial
ceremony of the fair bride, read the funeral services over her dead
body.

No one was present at the burial but Hannah Worth, Reuben Gray, the two
old negroes, Dinah and Jovial, the Professor of Odd Jobs, and the
officiating clergyman.

CHAPTER XIV.

OVER NORA'S GRAVE.

Oh, Mother Earth! upon thy lap,
Thy weary ones receiving,
And o'er them, silent as a dream,
Thy grassy mantle weaving,
Fold softly, in thy long embrace,
That heart so worn and broken,
And cool its pulse of fire beneath
Thy shadows old and oaken.