me out, coldly and softly. For Marise it
had the sweetness of a longed-for anaesthetic, it had the very odor of
the dreamless quiet into which she longed to sink. But Agnes shrank
away, drew hastily closer to Marise, and whispered in a sudden panic,
"Oh, don't it scare you? Aren't you afraid to be here all alone, just
you and me? We'd ought to have had a man stay too."

Marise tried to answer simply and kindly, "No, I'm not afraid. It is
only all that is left of dear Cousin Hetty." But the impatience and
contemptuous surprise which she kept out of her words and voice were
felt none the less by the old woman. She drooped submissively as under a
reproach. "I know it's foolish," she murmured, "I know it's foolish."

She began again to weep, the tears filling her faded eyes and running
quietly down her wrinkled old cheeks. "You don't know how gone I feel
without her!" she mourned. "I'd always had her to tell me what to do.
Thirty-five years now, every day, she's been here to tell me what to do.
I can't make it seem true, that it's her lying in there. Seems as though
every minute she'd come in, stepping quick, the way she did. And I
fairly open my mouth to ask her, 'Now Miss Hetty, what shall I do next?'
and then it all comes over me."

Marise's impatience and scorn were flooded by an immense sympathy. What
a pitiable thing a dependent is! Poor old Agnes! She leaned down to the
humble, docile old face, and put her cheek against it. "I'll do my best
to take Cousin Hetty's place for you," she said gently, and then, "Now
you'd better go back to bed. There's a hard day ahead of us."

Agnes responded with relief to the tone of authority. She said with a
reassured accent, "Well, it's all right if _you're_ not afraid," turned
and shuffled down the hall, comforted and obedient.

Marise saw her go into her room, heard the creak of the bed as she lay
down on it, and then the old voice, "Miss Marise, will it be all right
if I leave my candle burning, just this once?"

"Yes, yes, Agnes, that'll be all right," she answered. "Go to sleep
now." As she went back into her own room, she thought passingly to
herself, "Strange that anyone can live so long and grow up so little."

She herself opened her bed, lay down on it resolutely, and blew out her
candle.

Instantly the room seemed suffocatingly full of a thousand flying,
disconnected pictures. The talk with Agnes had changed her mood. The
dull, leaden weight of that numbing burden o