ched him,
his hair, his face, his waxen hands, was all the more impressive for
that in its restrained tenderness.

Suddenly she uncovered his feet. They were white as marble, and
beautifully formed. "Ah, I feared so!" she exclaimed. "They put them
into hot water that day. I knew it was too hot, and I said so; he
seemed insensible, but I felt him wince--and see!" The scar of a scald
proved that she had been right. This last act, due to the fear that he
had been made to suffer an unnecessary pang, struck Beth in after
years as singularly pathetic.

It was not until after the funeral that Beth herself realised that she
had lost her father. When they returned, the house had been set in
order, and made to look as usual--yet something was missing. The
blinds were up, the sun was streaming in, the "Ingoldsby Legends" lay
on the sofa in the sitting-room. When Beth saw the book her eyes
dilated with a pang. It lay there, just as he had left it; but he was
in the ground. He would never come back again.

Suddenly the child threw herself on the floor in an agony of grief,
sobbing, moaning, writhing, tearing her hair, and calling aloud,
"Papa! papa! Come back! come back! come back!"

Mrs. Caldwell in her fright would have tried her old remedy of shaking
and beating; but Mrs. Ellis snatched the child up and carried her off
to the nursery, where she kept her for the rest of that terrible day,
rocking her on her knee most of the time, and talking to her about her
father in heaven, living the life eternal, yet watching over her
still, and waiting for her, until she fired Beth's imagination, and
the terrible grave was forgotten.

That night, however, and for many nights to come, the child started up
out of her sleep, and wept, and wailed, and tore her hair, and had
again to be nursed and comforted.

CHAPTER XI

Just like the mountains, all jumbled up together when you view them
from a distance, had Beth's impulses and emotions already begun to be
in their extraordinary complexity at this period; and even more like
the mountains when you are close to them, for then, losing sight of
the whole, you become aware of the details, and are surprised at their
wonderful diversity, at the heights and hollows, the barren wastes,
fertile valleys, gentle slopes, and giddy precipices--heights and
hollows of hope and despair, barren wastes of mis-spent time, fertile
valleys of intellectual accomplishment, gentle slopes of aspiration
un