with you, my dear," I answered, penitently; and, in fact,
by the time the maid brought up the Haskeths' cards I was ready to go
down. We certainly needed each other's support, and I do not know but we
descended the stairs hand in hand, and entered the parlor leaning upon
each other's shoulders. The Haskeths, who were much more deeply
concerned, were not apparently so much moved. We shook hands with them,
and then Mrs. Hasketh said to us in succession, "My niece, Mrs. March;
Mr. March, my niece."

The young girl had risen, and stood veiled before us, and a sort of
heart-breaking appeal expressed itself in the gentle droop of her
figure, which did the whole office of her hidden face. The Haskeths were
dressed, as became their years, in a composite fashion of no particular
period; but I noticed at once, with the fondness I have for what is
pretty in the modes, that Miss Tedham wore one of the latest costumes,
and that she was not only a young girl, but a young lady, with all that
belongs to the outward seeming of one of the gentlest of the kind. It
struck me as the more monstrous, therefore, that she should be involved
in the coil of her father's inexpiable offence, which entangled her
whether he stayed or whether he went. It was well enough that the
Haskeths should still be made miserable through him; it belonged to
their years and experience; they would soon end, at any rate, and it did
not matter whether their remnant of life was dark or bright. But this
child had a right to a long stretch of unbroken sunshine. As I stood and
looked at her I felt the heart-burning, the indefinable indignation that
we feel in the presence of death when it is the young and fair who have
died. Here is a miscalculation, a mistake. It ought not to have been.

I thought that my wife, in the effusion of sympathy, would have perhaps
taken the girl in her arms; but probably she knew that the dropped veil
was a sign that there was to be no embracing. She put out her hand, and
the girl took it with her gloved hand; but though the outward forms of
their greeting were so cold, I fancied an instant understanding and
kindness between them.

"My niece," Mrs. Hasketh explained, when we were all seated, "came home
this afternoon, instead of this morning, when we expected her."

My wife said, "Oh, yes," and after a moment, a very painful moment, in
which I think we all tried to imagine something that would delay the
real business, Mrs. Hasketh began a