he stooped and picked up the apples that had fallen before their time.

"The apples are ripe and ready to fall, Oh! heigh-ho! and ready to fall;
There came an old woman and gathered them all, Oh! heigh-ho! and gathered
them all."

......They brought Pasiance very simply--no hideous funeral trappings,
thank God--the farm hands carried her, and there was no one there but
John Ford, the Hopgoods, myself, and that young doctor. They read the
service over her grave. I can hear John Ford's "Amen!" now. When it was
over he walked away bareheaded in the sun, without a word. I went up
there again this evening, and wandered amongst the tombstones. "Richard
Voisey," "John, the son of Richard and Constance Voisey," "Margery
Voisey," so many generations of them in that corner; then "Richard Voisey
and Agnes his wife," and next to it that new mound on which a sparrow was
strutting and the shadows of the apple-trees already hovering.

I will tell you the little left to tell....

On Wednesday afternoon she asked for me again.

"It's only till seven," she whispered. "He's certain to come then. But
if I--were to die first--then tell him--I'm sorry for him. They keep
saying: 'Don't talk--don't talk!' Isn't it stupid? As if I should have
any other chance! There'll be no more talking after to-night! Make
everybody come, please--I want to see them all. When you're dying you're
freer than any other time--nobody wants you to do things, nobody cares
what you say.... He promised me I should do what I liked if I married
him--I never believed that really--but now I can do what I like; and say
all the things I want to." She lay back silent; she could not after all
speak the inmost thoughts that are in each of us, so sacred that they
melt away at the approach of words.

I shall remember her like that--with the gleam of a smile in her
half-closed eyes, her red lips parted--such a quaint look of mockery,
pleasure, regret, on her little round, upturned face; the room white, and
fresh with flowers, the breeze guttering the apple-leaves against the
window. In the night they had unhooked the violin and taken it away; she
had not missed it.... When Dan came, I gave up my place to him. He took
her hand gently in his great paw, without speaking.

"How small my hand looks there," she said, "too small." Dan put it
softly back on the bedclothes and wiped his forehead. Pasiance cried in
a sharp whisper: "Is it so hot in here? I didn't know.