, an' then lost him. 'Tain't a week,'
says I, 'sence he was carried out o' this house. Don't you talk to me
about God.'"

Lucy was looking at her with eloquent responses in her face. Hetty
glanced up, and partly understood them.

"Nor you neither, Lucy," she made haste to say. "You're terrible pious,
an' you've had your troubles, an' they've be'n heavy; but you ain't had
an' lost. If I could take it on me to-day to lay there as you be,
knowin' I shouldn't get up no more, I'd jump at it if I could have
Willard back, whistlin' round an' cuttin' up didos. Yes, I would."

"I guess you would," murmured Lucy to herself. "It's too bad--too bad."

There was a step on the doorstone, and Caroline came in. She was Lucy's
sister, gaunt and dark-eyed, with high cheek-bones, and the red of
health upon them. She regarded Hetty piercingly.

"You got company over to your house?" she asked at once.

"No," Hetty answered. She added bitterly, "It's stiller'n the grave. I
don't expect company no more."

"Well," commented Caroline.

She had laid aside her shawl, and began fruitful sallies about the
kitchen, putting in a stick of wood, catching off the lid from the pot,
to regard the dinner with a frowning brow, and then sitting down to
extricate from her pocket a small something rolled in her handkerchief.

"I've be'n into Mis' Flood's," she said, "an' she gi'n me this." She
walked over to her sister, bearing the treasure with a joyous pride.
"It's as nice a slip o' rose geranium as ever I see."

Hetty's face contracted sharply.

"I've throwed away the flowers," she said.

Both sisters glanced at her in sympathetic knowledge. Caroline was
busily setting out the slip in a side of the calla pot, and she got a
tumbler to cover it.

"Them parson's wife sent over?" she asked.

Hetty nodded. "There was a dozen of 'em," she continued, with pride,
"white carnation pinks."

"She sent way to Fairfax for 'em," said Caroline. "Her girl told me.
Handsome, wa'n't they?"

"They wa'n't no handsomer'n what come from round here," said Hetty
jealously, "not a mite. There you sent over your calla, an' Mis' Flood
cut off that long piece o' German ivy, an' the little Ballard
gal,--nothin' would do but she must pick all them gloxinias an' have 'em
for Willard's funeral. I didn't hardly know there was so many flowers in
the world, in winter time." She mused a moment, her face fallen into
grief. Then she roused herself. "What'd you mean by askin'