ttle,"
she said. "Go out and close the shutter."

When he came back, she lay shrivelled up among the pillows.

He heard no sound of weeping, but the shoulders shook. He darkened the
room completely.

When Gregory went to his sofa that night, she told him to wake her
early; she would be dressed before breakfast. Nevertheless, when morning
came, she said it was a little cold, and lay all day watching her
clothes upon the chair. Still she sent for her oxen in the country; they
would start on Monday and go down to the Colony.

In the afternoon she told him to open the window wide, and draw the bed
near it.

It was a leaden afternoon, the dull rain-clouds rested close to the
roofs of the houses, and the little street was silent and deserted.
Now and then a gust of wind eddying round caught up the dried leaves,
whirled them hither and thither under the trees, and dropped them again
into the gutter; then all was quiet. She lay looking out.

Presently the bell of the church began to toll, and up the village
street came a long procession. They were carrying an old man to his last
resting-place. She followed them with her eyes till they turned in among
the trees at the gate.

"Who was that?" she asked.

"An old man," he answered, "a very old man; they say he was ninety-four;
but his name I do not know."

She mused a while, looking out with fixed eyes.

"That is why the bell rang so cheerfully," she said. "When the old die
it is well; they have had their time. It is when the young die that the
bells weep drops of blood."

"But the old love life?" he said; for it was sweet to hear her speak.

She raised herself on her elbow.

"They love life, they do not want to die," she answered, "but what
of that? They have had their time. They knew that a man's life
is three-score years and ten; they should have made their plans
accordingly!

"But the young," she said, "the young, cut down, cruelly, when they have
not seen, when they have not known--when they have not found--it is for
them that the bells weep blood. I heard in the ringing it was an old
man. When the old die-- Listen to the bell! it is laughing--'It is
right, it is right; he has had his time.' They cannot ring so for the
young."

She fell back exhausted; the hot light died from her eyes, and she lay
looking out into the street. By and by stragglers from the funeral began
to come back and disappear here and there among the houses; then all
was quiet, and the