rd delicacy of form and aquilinity of feature. They confronted
each other with the pitiless immovability of two statues in whose
marble lineaments emotions were fixed for all eternity.

Then Henry Glynn smiled and the smile transformed his face. He looked
suddenly years younger, and an almost boyish recklessness appeared in
his face. He flung himself into a chair with a gesture which was
bewildering from its incongruity with his general appearance. He leaned
his head back, flung one leg over the other, and looked laughingly at
Mrs. Brigham.

"I declare, Emma, you grow younger every year," he said.

She flushed a little, and her placid mouth widened at the corners. She
was susceptible to praise.

"Our thoughts to-day ought to belong to the one of us who will _never_
grow older," said Caroline in a hard voice.

Henry looked at her, still smiling. "Of course, we none of us forget
that," said he, in a deep, gentle voice; "but we have to speak to the
living, Caroline, and I have not seen Emma for a long time, and the
living are as dear as the dead."

"Not to me," said Caroline.

She rose and went abruptly out of the room again. Rebecca also rose and
hurried after her, sobbing loudly.

Henry looked slowly after them.

"Caroline is completely unstrung," said he.

Mrs. Brigham rocked. A confidence in him inspired by his manner was
stealing over her. Out of that confidence she spoke quite easily and
naturally.

"His death was very sudden," said she.

Henry's eyelids quivered slightly but his gaze was unswerving.

"Yes," said he, "it was very sudden. He was sick only a few hours."

"What did you call it?"

"Gastric."

"You did not think of an examination?"

"There was no need. I am perfectly certain as to the cause of his
death."

Suddenly Mrs. Brigham felt a creep as of some live horror over her very
soul. Her flesh prickled with cold, before an inflection of his voice.
She rose, tottering on weak knees.

"Where are you going?" asked Henry in a strange, breathless voice.

Mrs. Brigham said something incoherent about some sewing which she had
to do--some black for the funeral--and was out of the room. She went up
to the front chamber which she occupied. Caroline was there. She went
close to her and took her hands, and the two sisters looked at each
other.

"Don't speak, don't, I won't have it!" said Caroline finally in an awful
whisper.

"I won't," replied Emma.

That afternoon the three sisters we