oked ten years
older than before.

The doctor sought an interview with him the next day, and said that he
felt obliged to tell him that if he had not pronounced his wife's
condition dangerous it was because he had felt sure that she would
recover. Her own happy frame of mind would help her, he thought. But
something most have happened that forenoon.

Atlung made no reply. The doctor then added that the boys were past all
danger; the elder one, indeed, had never been in any.

Atlung had not yet for a moment separated mother and boys in his
thoughts. During their illness he felt with her that they must live; for
the last twenty-four hours he had been convinced that they must follow
her in death. He could not think of the mother without them.

And now that he must separate them, the first feeling was--not one of
joy: no, it was dismay that even in this matter the dear one had been
disappointed! It seemed as though she were living and could see that it
was all a mistake, and that this last mistake had needlessly killed her.

The two little boys, clad in mourning, were the first objects we met on
the gard. They looked pale and frightened. They did not come to meet us,
nor did they return their father's caress.

In the passage Stina met us; she too looked worn. I expressed my honest
sympathy for her. She answered calmly that God's ways were inscrutable.
He alone knew what was for our good.

Atlung took me with him to the family burial-place, a little stone
chapel in a grove near the river. On the way there, he told me that
every time he tried to talk confidentially with the boys and endeavor to
be both father and mother to them, his loss rushed over him so
overwhelmingly that he was forced to stop. He would learn with time to
do his duty.

The sepulchral chamber was a friendly little chapel, in which the
coffins stood on the floor. The door, however, was not an ordinary door,
but an iron grating which now stood open; for there was work going on in
the chapel. We removed our hats, and walked forward to her little
coffin. We did not exchange a word. Not until after we had left it and
were looking at the other coffins and their inscriptions, did Atlung
inform me that his wife's coffin was to be placed in one of stone. I
remarked that in this way we would eventually have more of our ancestors
preserved than would be good for us. "But there is reverence in it," he
replied, as we walked out.

There was warmth in the atmo