ce and full, and when we come to get her in, she reely will look
lovely."

"I s'pose, Mis' Kittridge, you'll have the funeral to-morrow,--it's
Sunday."

"Why, yes, Aunt Roxy,--I think everybody must want to improve such a
dispensation. Have you took little Mara in to look at the corpse?"

"Well, no," said Miss Roxy; "Mis' Pennel's gettin' ready to take her
home."

"I think it's an opportunity we ought to improve," said Mrs. Kittridge,
"to learn children what death is. I think we can't begin to solemnize
their minds too young."

At this moment Sally and the little Mara entered the room.

"Come here, children," said Mrs. Kittridge, taking a hand of either one,
and leading them to the closed door of the keeping-room; "I've got
somethin' to show you."

The room looked ghostly and dim,--the rays of light fell through the
closed shutter on an object mysteriously muffled in a white sheet.

Sally's bright face expressed only the vague curiosity of a child to see
something new; but the little Mara resisted and hung back with all her
force, so that Mrs. Kittridge was obliged to take her up and hold her.

She folded back the sheet from the chill and wintry form which lay so
icily, lonely, and cold. Sally walked around it, and gratified her
curiosity by seeing it from every point of view, and laying her warm,
busy hand on the lifeless and cold one; but Mara clung to Mrs.
Kittridge, with eyes that expressed a distressed astonishment. The good
woman stooped over and placed the child's little hand for a moment on
the icy forehead. The little one gave a piercing scream, and struggled
to get away; and as soon as she was put down, she ran and hid her face
in Aunt Roxy's dress, sobbing bitterly.

"That child'll grow up to follow vanity," said Mrs. Kittridge; "her
little head is full of dress now, and she hates anything serious,--it's
easy to see that."

The little Mara had no words to tell what a strange, distressful chill
had passed up her arm and through her brain, as she felt that icy cold
of death,--that cold so different from all others. It was an impression
of fear and pain that lasted weeks and months, so that she would start
out of sleep and cry with a terror which she had not yet a sufficiency
of language to describe.

"You seem to forget, Mis' Kittridge, that this 'ere child ain't rugged
like our Sally," said Aunt Roxy, as she raised the little Mara in her
arms. "She was a seven-months' baby, and hard to raise at