unnatural, as he felt it, which came
into his mind as he stood by the bed upon which lay that which had
been the master of the Warren yesterday, and now was "the body"; a
solemn, inanimate thing arranged with dreadful neatness, presently to be
taken away and hid out of sight of the living. Tears did not come even
when he took his mother into his arms, but only a dumb awe not unmixed
with horror, and even that sense of repulsion with which some minds
regard the dead.

It was the height of summer, the time at which the Warren looked its
best. The sunshine, which scarcely got near it in the darker part of the
year, now penetrated the trees on every side, and rushed in as if for a
wager, every ray trying how far it could reach into the depths of the
shade. It poured full into the drawing-room by one window, so that Minnie
was mindful at all times to draw down that blind, that the carpet might
not be spoiled; and of course all the blinds were down now. It touched
the front of the house in the afternoon, and blazed upon the lawn, making
all the flowers wink. Inside, to people who had come out of the heat and
scorching of other places more open to the influences of the skies, the
coolness of the Warren in June was delightful. The windows stood open,
the hum of bees came in, the birds made an unceasing chorus in the trees.
Neither birds nor bees took the least notice of the fact that there
was death in the house. They carried on their jubilation, their hum of
business, their love-making and nursery talk, all the same, and made the
house sound not like a house of mourning, but a house of rejoicing; all
this harmonious noise being doubly audible in the increased stillness
of the place, where Minnie thought it right to speak in a whisper, and
Chatty was afraid to go beyond the example of her sister. Mrs. Warrender
kept her room, except in the evening, when she would go out with Theo
for a little air. Only in the grounds! no farther,--through the woods,
which the moonlight pierced with arrows of silver, as far as the pond,
which shone like a white mirror with all the great leaves of the
water-lilies black upon its surface. But the girls thought that even
this was too much. They could not think how she could feel able for it
before the funeral. They sat with one shaded lamp and the shutters all
closed, "reading a book," which was their severest estimate of gravity.
That is to say, each had a book: one a volume of sermons, the other