to be his wife.

"Why, in the fiend's name, is the whole house as dark as pitch?" he
roughly demanded, as he went to a front window and threw open the
shutters, letting in the white light of the snow storm.

"Grandfather!"

It was the voice of Cora that spoke, and there was a something in its
tone that struck and almost awed even the Iron King.

He turned abruptly.

Cora had risen from her chair and was now standing by the bed. But on
the bed lay a little, still, fair form, with hands folded over its
breast, with the eyes shut down forever, and all over the fair, wan,
placid face was "the peace of God which passeth all understanding."

"What is this?" demanded Old Aaron Rockharrt, as he came up to the bed.

"Look at her. She rests at last. I have been with her twenty years, and
this is the first time I have ever seen her rest in peace."

Old Aaron Rockharrt stood like a stone beside the bed, gazing down on
the dead.

"She is safe now, never more to be startled, or frightened, or tortured
by any one. 'Safe, where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary
are at rest,'" continued Cora.

Still Old Aaron stood like a stone beside the bed and gazed down on the
dead.

Suddenly, without moving or withdrawing his gaze from where it rested,
he asked in a low, gruff tone:

"How did this happen?"

"She fainted in her chair, and died in that faint."

"When? where? from what?"

"Within an hour after you had left us together in the back parlor, with
the paper containing the news of my husband's death," answered Cora,
speaking in a tone of most unnatural calmness.

"Had that excitement anything to do with her swoon?"

"I do not know."

"Give me the particulars."

"We--or, rather, she--first took up the paper, and without knowing what
the news was that you told us to look at, gave it to me, and asked me to
read it. I, as soon as I saw what it was--I lost all control over
myself. I do not know how I behaved. But she took the paper, to see what
it was that had so disturbed me, and then, she, too, became very much
agitated; but she tried to console me, tried for a long while to comfort
me, standing over my chair, and caressing and talking. At last she left
me, and sat down and leaned back in her own chair. I was trying to be
quiet, and at last succeeded, and then I arose and went to her, meaning
to tell her that I would be calm and not distress her any more. When I
looked at her, I found that she had fainted.