round the _door-cheek_. Auntie's temper was none the better than usual
that it had pleased the _Almichty_ to take the brother whom she loved,
and to leave behind the child whom she regarded as a painful
responsibility. And now with her small, fierce eyes, and her big, thin
nose--both red with suppressed crying--she did not dawn upon the sense
of Annie as an embodiment of the maternity of the universe.

"Ye plaguesome brat!" cried Auntie; "there has Betty been seekin' ye,
and I hae been seekin' ye, far an' near, i' the verra rottan-holes; an'
here ye are, on yer ain father's buryin' day, that comes but
ance--takin' up wi' a coo."

But the causes of Annie's preference of the society of Brownie to that
of Auntie might have been tolerably clear to an onlooker, without word
spoken. For to Annie and her needs, notwithstanding the humble
four-footedness of Brownie, there was in her large mild eyes, and her
hairy, featureless face, all nose and no nose, more of the divine than
in the human form of Auntie Meg. And there was something of an
indignation quite human in the way the cow tossed her bound head and
neck towards the woman that darkened the door, as if warning her off
her premises. But without a word of reply, Annie rose, flung her arms
around Brownie's head, kissed the white star on her forehead,
disengaged herself from the grass, and got out of the manger. Auntie
seized her hand with a rough action, but not ungentle grasp, and led
her away to the house. The stones felt very hot to her little bare
feet.

CHAPTER III.

By this time the funeral was approaching the churchyard at a more rapid
pace; for the pedestrians had dropped away one by one, on diverging
roads, or had stopped and retraced their steps. But as they drew near
the place, the slow trot subsided into a slow walk once more. To an
English eye the whole mode would have appeared barbarous. But if the
carved and gilded skulls and cross-bones on the hearse were
ill-conceived, at least there were no awful nodding plumes to make
death hideous with yet more of cloudy darkness; and one of the panels
showed, in all the sunshine that golden rays could yield, the
Resurrection of the Lord--the victory over the grave. And, again, when
they stopped at the gate of the churchyard, they were the hands of
friends and neighbours, and not those of cormorant undertakers and
obscene mutes, that bore the dead man to his grave. And, once more, if
the only rite they ob