e day's task--a painful one, as all the family knew. The
elder brother had shrunk from it, and it had been left to Nathanael, who
in all things was now the thinker and the doer. The impression of this
had fixed itself outwardly, effacing the last remnant of his boyish
looks. As he stood leaning over Mary, Agatha thought he had already the
aspect of middle age.

"It will not take me long, Mary, since you say my father kept his papers
in such order. Probably I shall have done by the time the Dugdales come.
You are quite sure there was a will?"

"Quite sure; you will probably find it in the cabinet. I saw him looking
there the very afternoon of the day he died. I was calling him
to dinner, but his back was turned, and I could not make him
understand--poor father!"

Mary's eyes filled, but the younger brother said a few kind words, and
her grief ceased The rest were silent and serious, until Nathanael,
going away, addressed Frederick rather formally. All speech between
them, though smooth, was invariably formal and rare.

"You are satisfied to leave this duty in my hands?--you do not wish to
share it?"

"Oh, no, no!" hurriedly answered the other, walking away in the sunny
window-seat, and breathing its freshness eagerly, as if to drive away
the bare thought of death and the grave.

Nathanael went out--but ere he had closed the door a little hand touched
him.

"What do you want, Agatha?"

"I should like to go with you, if you would allow--that is, if you would
not forbid me."

"Forbid you? Nay! But"--

"I want--not to interrupt you, or share any family secrets--but just to
sit near you in the room. This is such a strange, dreary house now!" And
she shivered.

Her husband sighed. "Poor child--such a child to be in the midst of us
and our trouble! Come with me if you will." And he took her into the
study.

No one had been there since the father died; directly afterwards some
careful hand had locked the door, and brought the key to Nathanael;
and it was the only room in the house whose window, undarkened, had met
during all that week the eye of day. It felt close with sunshine and
want of air. Mr. Harper opened the casement, and placed an arm-chair
beside it, where Agatha might look out on the chrysanthemum bed, and the
tall evergreen, where a robin sat singing. He pointed out both to her,
as if wishing to fortify her with a sense of life and cheerfulness, and
then sat down to the gloomy task of looking over hi