had never left her room
since the night of her mother's death, and was supposed to be almost
unconscious of all that was going on in the house, declared her
intention of following her mother to the grave. No one could do more
than remonstrate: no one had sufficient authority to interfere with
her. Dr Morgan even thought that she might possibly be roused to
tears by the occasion; only he begged Hester to go with her, that
she might have the solace of some woman's company.

She went through the greater part of the ceremony in the same hard,
unmoved manner in which she had received everything for days past.

But on looking up once, as they formed round the open grave, she saw
Kester, in his Sunday clothes, with a bit of new crape round his
hat, crying as if his heart would break over the coffin of his good,
kind mistress.

His evident distress, the unexpected sight, suddenly loosed the
fountain of Sylvia's tears, and her sobs grew so terrible that
Hester feared she would not be able to remain until the end of the
funeral. But she struggled hard to stay till the last, and then she
made an effort to go round by the place where Kester stood.

'Come and see me,' was all she could say for crying: and Kester only
nodded his head--he could not speak a word.

CHAPTER XXXVI

MYSTERIOUS TIDINGS

That very evening Kester came, humbly knocking at the kitchen-door.
Phoebe opened it. He asked to see Sylvia.

'A know not if she'll see thee,' said Phoebe. 'There's no makin' her
out; sometimes she's for one thing, sometimes she's for another.'

'She bid me come and see her,' said Kester. 'Only this mornin', at
missus' buryin', she telled me to come.'

So Phoebe went off to inform Sylvia that Kester was there; and
returned with the desire that he would walk into the parlour. An
instant after he was gone, Phoebe heard him return, and carefully
shut the two doors of communication between the kitchen and
sitting-room.

Sylvia was in the latter when Kester came in, holding her baby close
to her; indeed, she seldom let it go now-a-days to any one else,
making Nancy's place quite a sinecure, much to Phoebe's indignation.

Sylvia's face was shrunk, and white, and thin; her lovely eyes alone
retained the youthful, almost childlike, expression. She went up to
Kester, and shook his horny hand, she herself trembling all over.

'Don't talk to me of her,' she said hastily. 'I cannot stand it.
It's a blessing for her to be gone,