orward and rapidly threw in the earth
until he had filled the little hollow even with the ground. Then, with
fearful precaution, he laid down the carefully cut sods, and smoothed
them until there was no sign of what had been done. The clergyman turned
to the two mourners, without moving nearer to them, and lifted up his
hands. The old man tried to kneel; but his son held him up, for he was
too feeble, and they bent their heads for a moment of silence. The
clergyman went away as he had come; and Jacob Dolph and his son went
back to the carriage. When his father was seated, young Jacob Dolph said
to the coachman: "To the new house."

The heavy coach swung into Broadway, and climbed up the hill out into
the open country. There were lights still burning in the farmhouses,
bright gleams to east and west, but the silence of the damp summer night
hung over the sparse suburbs, and the darkness seemed to grow more
intense as they drove away from the city. The trees by the roadside were
almost black in the gray mist; the raw, moist smell of the night, the
damp air, chilly upon the high land, came in through the carriage
windows. Young Jacob looked out and noted their progress by familiar
landmarks on the road; but the old man sat with his head bent on his new
black stock.

It was almost three, and the east was beginning to look dark, as though
a storm were settling there in the grayness, when they turned down the
straggling street and drew up before the great dark mass that was the
new house. The carriage-wheels gritted against the loose stones at the
edge of the roadway, and the great door of the house swung open. The
light of one wavering candle-flame, held high above her head, fell on
the black face of old Chloe, the coachman's wife. There were no candles
burning on the high-pitched stairway; all was dark behind her in the
empty house.

Young Jacob Dolph helped his father to the ground, and between the young
man and the negro old Jacob Dolph wearily climbed the steps. Chloe
lifted her apron to her face, and turned to lead them up the stair. Her
husband went out to his horses, shutting the door softly after him,
between Jacob Dolph's old life and the new life that was to begin in the
new house.

II.

When young Jacob Dolph came down to breakfast the next morning he found
his father waiting for him in the breakfast-room. The meal was upon the
table. Old Chloe stood with her black hands folded upon her white apron,