mine is down
there. The pain is the trying to get your soul loose. It's the edge of a
knife that won't cut through. Do you know that?"

Rhoda said, as acquiescingly as she could, "Yes."

"Do you?" Dahlia whispered. "It's what they call the 'agony.' Only, to go
through it in the dark, when you are all alone! boarded round! you will
never know that. And there's an angel brings me one of mother's roses,
and I smell it. I see fields of snow; and it's warm there, and no labour
for breath. I see great beds of flowers; I pass them like a breeze. I'm
shot, and knock on the ground, and they bury me for dead again. Indeed,
dearest, it's true."

She meant, true as regarded her sensations. Rhoda could barely give a
smile for response; and Dahlia's intelligence being supernaturally
active, she read her sister's doubt, and cried out,--

"Then let me talk of him!"

It was the fiery sequence to her foregone speech, signifying that if her
passion had liberty to express itself, she could clear understandings.
But even a moment's free wing to passion renewed the blinding terror
within her. Rhoda steadied her along the walks, praying for the time to
come when her friends, the rector and his wife, might help in the task of
comforting this poor sister. Detestation of the idea of love made her
sympathy almost deficient, and when there was no active work to do in
aid, she was nearly valueless, knowing that she also stood guilty of a
wrong.

The day was very soft and still. The flowers gave light for light. They
heard through the noise of the mill-water the funeral bell sound. It sank
in Rhoda like the preaching of an end that was promise of a beginning,
and girdled a distancing land of trouble. The breeze that blew seemed
mercy. To live here in forgetfulness with Dahlia was the limit of her
desires. Perhaps, if Robert worked among them, she would gratefully give
him her hand. That is, if he said not a word of love.

Master Gammon and Mrs. Sumfit were punctual in their return near the
dinnerhour; and the business of releasing the dumplings and potatoes, and
spreading out the cold meat and lettuces, restrained for some period the
narrative of proceedings at the funeral. Chief among the incidents was,
that Mrs. Sumfit had really seen, and only wanted, by corroboration of
Master Gammon, to be sure she had positively seen, Anthony Hackbut on the
skirts of the funeral procession. Master Gammon, however, was no
supporter of conjecture. What h