! I was ashamed to listen to some of the things he tried to scare
me with that night."

"He couldn't answer when I piped up about his cousin, Tessie Hobbs,
that went to St. Louis to learn millinery and sends home four dollars a
week. He couldn't answer that, could he?"

"No, he couldn't, Cottie."

A silence--the great stone silence of a coliseum--closed in about them.
Della shivered and burrowed her head deeper into her sister's lap.

"Aw, Gawd, us talkin' like this, with him layin' in there!"

"If he wasn't layin' in there we wouldn't be talkin'."

A shutter swung in on its hinges.

"There, there! It ain't nothin' but the wind, Della."

"He was goin' to fix that shutter to-day when he was off shift. Gawd, he
didn't have no more idea of dyin' than I did!"

"That's just like maw. Sometimes in the night I can almost hear her stop
breathin'--she's so weak, but she's always talkin' about next year--next
year."

"It'll be awful for you, little sister, with me gone and you alone with
her."

"It--it ain't a sin to say it, Delia. She--she ain't here for long, and
I'll be comin' to join you soon. You'll tell 'em I'm comin'."

"Gawd, how I wish we was going together, little sister! Leavin' you is
just like leavin' my heart. There's nobody I love like you, Cottie."

"Della darlin', look at Lily--she went alone."

"I--I ain't afraid--you got the best voice of us two, but I'll make the
way for you, dearie. I'll make it easier for you to come."

"It won't be long."

"If I could only have got his name that time on the train, Cottie!"

"You got Lily's boardin'-house, dearie. Ain't that something?"

"Oh, darlin'--him layin' in there!"

"Don't begin that again, dearie."

"Listen, Cottie--listen--that can't be the six-thirty accommodation
already, is it? It ain't the funeral-day already, is it?"

"Yes, dearie; but it's a long way off. See, it's just gettin' light
through the crack in the shade."

"Don't raise it, Cottie. It's a sin to let in the light, with him layin'
there and dead."

"Darlin', it ain't goin' to hurt him, and the lamp's low. See; there
ain't no harm in raisin' it--look how light it's gettin'!"

Off toward the east dawn trembled on the edge of eternity and sent up,
as if the earth were lighting the horizon, a pearlish light shotted with
pink. A smattering of stars lingered and trembled as though cold. They
paled; dawn grew pinker, and the black village, with its naked trees
standing darkly ag