as crying--that she had not a
friend in the wide world?"

And this fact, which he expressed with a sort of triumph, seemed to
afford the greatest possible comfort to John.

But all our speculations were set at rest by a request brought this
moment by Mrs. Tod--that Mr. Halifax would go with her to speak to Miss
March.

"I! only I?" said John, starting.

"Only you, sir. She wants somebody to speak to about the funeral--and
I said, 'There be Mr. Halifax, Miss March, the kindest gentleman'; and
she said, 'if it wouldn't trouble him to come--'"

"Tell her I am coming."

When, after some time, he returned, he was very serious.

"Wait a minute, Phineas, and you shall hear; I feel confused, rather.
It is so strange, her trusting me thus. I wish I could help her more."

Then he told me all that had passed--how he and Mrs. Tod had conjointly
arranged the hasty funeral--how brave and composed she had been--that
poor child, all alone!

"Has she indeed no one to help her?"

"No one. She might send for Mr. Brithwood, but he was not friendly
with her father; she said she had rather ask this 'kindness' of me,
because her father had liked me, and thought I resembled their Walter,
who died."

"Poor Mr. March!--perhaps he is with Walter, now. But, John, can you
do all that is necessary for her? You are very young."

"She does not seem to feel that. She treats me as if I were a man of
forty. Do I look so old and grave, Phineas?"

"Sometimes. And about the funeral?"

"It will be very simple. She is determined to go herself. She wishes
to have no one besides Mrs. Tod, you, and me."

"Where is he to be buried?"

"In the little churchyard close by, which you and I have looked at many
a time. Ah, Phineas, we did not think how soon we should be laying our
dead there."

"Not OUR dead, thank God!"

But the next minute I understood. "OUR dead"--the involuntary
admission of that sole feeling, which makes one, erewhile a stranger,
say to, or think of another--"All thine are mine, and mine are thine,
henceforward and for ever."

I watched John as he stood by the fire; his thoughtful brow and
firm-set lips contradicting the youthfulness of his looks. Few as were
his years, he had learnt much in them. He was at heart a man, ready
and able to design and carry out a man's work in the world. And in his
whole aspect was such grave purity, such honest truth, that no wonder,
young as they both were, and little as she k