but she sat holding the poor wee lassie's hand and
looking in her pretty, pale, dead face, without so much as shedding a
tear. And it was all the same, when they had to take her away to be
buried. She just kissed the child, and sat her down in the window-seat
to watch the little black train of people (neighbours--my aunt, and one
far-off cousin, who were all the friends they could muster) go winding
away amongst the snow, which had fallen thinly over the country the night
before. When my aunt came back from the funeral, she found my mother in
the same place, and as dry-eyed as ever. So she continued until after
Gregory was born; and, somehow, his coming seemed to loosen the tears,
and she cried day and night, till my aunt and the other watcher looked at
each other in dismay, and would fain have stopped her if they had but
known how. But she bade them let her alone, and not be over-anxious, for
every drop she shed eased her brain, which had been in a terrible state
before for want of the power to cry. She seemed after that to think of
nothing but her new little baby; she had hardly appeared to remember
either her husband or her little daughter that lay dead in Brigham
churchyard--at least so aunt Fanny said, but she was a great talker, and
my mother was very silent by nature, and I think aunt Fanny may have been
mistaken in believing that my mother never thought of her husband and
child just because she never spoke about them. Aunt Fanny was older than
my mother, and had a way of treating her like a child; but, for all that,
she was a kind, warm-hearted creature, who thought more of her sister's
welfare than she did of her own and it was on her bit of money that they
principally lived, and on what the two could earn by working for the
great Glasgow sewing-merchants. But by-and-by my mother's eye-sight
began to fail. It was not that she was exactly blind, for she could see
well enough to guide herself about the house, and to do a good deal of
domestic work; but she could no longer do fine sewing and earn money. It
must have been with the heavy crying she had had in her day, for she was
but a young creature at this time, and as pretty a young woman, I have
heard people say, as any on the country side. She took it sadly to heart
that she could no longer gain anything towards the keep of herself and
her child. My aunt Fanny would fain have persuaded her that she had
enough to do in managing their cottage and minding