ower-chest into which she had flung her wretched wedding-clothes. She
stood silently before it, reflecting, with excusable ill-nature, that
neither Will nor Alice knew the secret of its spring. Her mother had
taught it to her, and that bit of knowledge she determined to keep to
herself.

After some hesitation she tried the spring: it answered her pressure
at once; the lid flew back, and there lay the unhappy white satin
dress, the wreath, and veil, and slippers, just as she had tumbled
them in. The bitter hour came sharply back to her; she thought and
gazed, and thought and gazed, until she felt herself to be weeping.
Then she softly closed the lid, and, as she did so, a smile parted
her lips,--a smile that denied all that her tears said; a smile of
hope, of good presage, of coming happiness.

She stayed only a week at Seat-Ambar, though she had originally
intended to remain until the harvest was over. The time was spent in
public festivity; every one in Allerdale was invited to give her a
fitting welcome. But the very formality of all this entertainment
pained her. It was, after all, only a cruel evidence that Will and
Alice did not care to take her into their real home-life. She would
rather have sat alone with them, and talked of their hopes and plans,
and been permitted to make friends of the babies.

So far away, so far away as she had drifted in three years from the
absent living! Would the dead be kinder? She went to Aspatria Church
and sat down in her mother's seat, and let the strange spiritual
atmosphere which hovers in old churches fill her heart with its
supernatural influence. All around her were the graves of her
fore-elders, strong elemental men, simple God-loving women. Did they
know her? Did they care for her? Her soul looked with piteous entreaty
into the void behind it, but there was no answer; only that dreadful
silence of the dead, which presses upon the drum of the ear like
thunder.

She went into the quiet yard around the church. The ancient, ancient
sun shone on the young grass. Over her mother's grave the sweet thyme
had grown luxuriantly. She rubbed her hands in it, and spread them
toward heaven with a prayer. Then peace came into her heart, and she
felt as if eyes, unseen heavenly eyes, rained happy influence upon
her. Thus it is that death imparts to life its most intense interest;
for, kneeling in his very presence, Aspatria forgot the mortality of
her parents, and did reverence to that