ail. But if death be a promise of life in another condition, then,
child, well may you shed tears, for your grief is a token of hope.

Shyuote stands at the foot of the beam, gaping. His mother lies so
still, she breathes so loudly. How well she must be sleeping! Why did
they call him down at all? It would have been much nicer upstairs where
there are Koshare to be seen. He knows well enough that sanaya is sick,
but as long as she has such good rest she ought to feel well. A child is
not afraid of a dying mother, and when she has breathed her last is
convinced that she must be happy. To be well is compatible in the minds
of children only with life. Death therefore appears to them as a step
into a better and more beautiful existence. Children and fools tell the
truth. The gleam of light which from dying Say is cast on her unruly son
is but the rosy hue of a hopeful twilight.

The remaining occupants of the room stand with sad looks; they are all
women but one, a middle-aged man. They do not feel the occasion except
so far as there is a certain solemnity connected with it. Silent and
grave, they watch a process going on whose real nature they cannot
understand except as a momentous and appalling change. Change is only
transformation, not annihilation.

Say Koitza has been lying thus for several days. The end is near at
hand, and yet hours may elapse ere she dies. So still it is in the
apartment that nobody dares even move. Rising and falling come the song
and the noise of the dance from the outside, but they seem to halt at
the little opening, as if an invisible medium would interpose itself,
saying, "Stay out, for within there ripens a fruit for another and a
better world."

Mitsha glides over to the young man with the dark, streaming hair and
touches his arm lightly. He looks up and at her. It is Okoya,--Okoya,
whom we believed to be dead, but who stands here by the side of his
dying mother. He also looks emaciated and wan. After all the dangers and
misery of a protracted flight this hour has come upon him. The eyes of
the two meet; their looks express neither tenderness nor passion, but a
perfect understanding that betokens a union which even death cannot
destroy. It is that simple, natural attachment which forms the basis of
Indian wedlock when the parties are congenial to each other.

That the two are one can be plainly seen. As yet no outward sanction has
been given to their union; but they are tacitly regarded