a night from home. Why should she be afraid of that quiet, still form,
which even in death was dearer to her than any other upon earth?

But Mrs. Nixey walked beside her, next the coffin, when the small
funeral procession wound its way slowly over the uplands to the country
churchyard, where the deaf and dumb old wood-carver was laid in a grave
beside his wife. It was almost impossible to shake her off on their
return, but Phebe could bear companionship no longer. She must walk
back alone along the familiar fields, where the green corn was springing
among the furrows, and under the brown hedgerows where all the buds were
swelling, to the open moor lying clear and barren in an unbroken plain
before her. How often had she walked along these narrow sheep-tracks
with her father pacing on in front, speechless, but so full of silent
sympathy with her that words were not missed between them. Their little
homestead lay like an island in a sea of heather and fern, with no other
dwelling in sight; but, oh, how empty and desolate it seemed!

The old house-dog crept up quietly to her, and whined softly; and the
cow, as she went into the shed to milk her, turned and licked her hand
gently, as if these dumb creatures knew her sorrow. There were some
evening tasks to be performed, for the laborer, who had been to the
funeral, was staying in the village with the other men who had helped to
carry her father's coffin, to rest themselves and have some refreshment
in the little inn there. She lingered over each duty with a dreary sense
of the emptiness of the house haunting her, and of the silence of the
hearth where all the long evening must be spent alone.

It was late in February, and though the fern and heather and gorse were
not yet in bud, there was a purple tinge upon the moor fore-telling the
quickly coming spring. The birds that had been silent all winter were
chirping under the eaves, or fluttered up from the causeway where she
had been scattering corn, at the sound of her footsteps across the
little farm-yard. The sun, near its setting, was shining across the
uplands, and throwing long shadows from every low bush and brake. Phebe
mounted the old horse-block by the garden wicket, and looked around her,
shading her eyes with her hands. The soft west wind, blowing over many
miles of moor and meadows and kissing her cheek, seemed like the touch
of a dear old friend, and the thin gray cloud overhead appeared only as
a slight veil sc