their two sisters, Muriel and Maud.

John and I sat up late together that night. He could not rest--even
though he told me he had left the mother and her two daughters as cosy
as a nest of wood-pigeons. We listened to the wild night, till it had
almost howled itself away; then our fire went out, and we came and sat
over the last faggot in Mrs. Tod's kitchen--the old Debateable Land.
We began talking of the long-ago time, and not of this time at all.
The vivid present--never out of either mind for an instant--we in our
conversation did not touch upon, by at least ten years. Nor did we
give expression to a thought which strongly oppressed me, and which I
once or twice fancied I could detect in John likewise--how very like
this night seemed to the night when Mr. March died; the same silentness
in the house--the same windy whirl without--the same blaze of the
wood-fire on the same kitchen ceiling.

More than once I could almost have deluded myself that I heard the
faint moans and footsteps over-head--that the staircase door would
open, and we should see there Miss March, in her white gown, and her
pale, steadfast look.

"I think the mother seemed very well and calm to-night," I said,
hesitatingly, as we were retiring.

"She is. God help her--and us all!"

"He will."

This was all we said.

He went up-stairs the last thing, and brought down word that mother and
children were all sound asleep.

"I think I may leave them until daylight to-morrow. And now, Uncle
Phineas, go you to bed, for you look as tired as tired can be."

I went to bed; but all night long I had disturbed dreams, in which I
pictured over and over again, first the night when Mr. March died--then
the night at Longfield, when the little white ghost had crossed by my
bed's foot, into the room where Mary Baines' dead boy lay. And
continually, towards morning, I fancied I heard through my window,
which faced the church, the faint, distant sound of the organ, as when
Muriel used to play it.

Long before it was light I rose. As I passed the boy's room Guy called
out to me:

"Halloa! Uncle Phineas, is it a fine morning?--for I want to go down
into the wood and get a lot of beech-nuts and fir-cones for sister.
It's her birthday to-day, you know."

It WAS, for her. But for us--Oh, Muriel, our darling--darling child!

Let me hasten over the story of that morning, for my old heart quails
before it still.

John went early to the room up-stairs