best."

"I'll manage it somehow. The house is very quiet: I've sent all the
children away, except the baby. The baby'll comfort her, poor dear!
afterwards." And, again drying her honest eyes, Mrs. Tod ran out of
the room.

We could do nothing at all that morning. The impending sorrow might
have been our own, instead of that of people who three weeks ago were
perfect strangers. We sat and talked--less, perhaps, of them
individually, than of the dark Angel, whom face to face I at least had
never yet known--who even now stood at the door of our little
habitation, making its various inmates feel as one family, in the
presence of the great leveller of all things--Death.

Hour by hour of that long day the rain fell down--pouring,
pouring--shutting us up, as it were, from the world without, and
obliterating every thought, save of what was happening under our one
roof--that awful change which was taking place in the upper room, in
the other half of the house, whence the moans descended, and whence
Mrs. Tod came out from time to time, hurrying mournfully to inform "Mr.
Halifax" how things went on.

It was nearly dusk before she told us Mr. March was asleep, that his
daughter had at last been persuaded to come down-stairs, and was
standing drinking "a cup o' tea" by the kitchen fire.

"You must go now, sir; she'll not stop five minutes. Please go."

"I will," he answered; but he turned frightfully pale. "Phineas--don't
let her see us both. Stay without the door. If there were anybody to
tell her this but me!"

"Do you hesitate?"

"No--No."

And he went out. I did not follow him; but I heard afterwards, both
from himself and Mrs. Tod, what transpired.

She was standing so absorbed that she did not notice his entrance. She
looked years older and sadder than the young girl who had stood by the
stream-side less than a week ago. When she turned and spoke to John it
was with a manner also changed. No hesitation, no shyness; trouble had
put aside both.

"Thank you, my father is indeed seriously ill. I am in great trouble,
you see, though Mrs. Tod is very, very kind. Don't cry so, good Mrs.
Tod; I can't cry, I dare not. If I once began I should never stop, and
then how could I help my poor father? There now, there!"

She laid her hand, with its soft, fluttering motions, on the good
woman's shoulder, and looked up at John. He said afterwards that those
dry, tearless eyes smote him to the heart.

"Why d