her slumber, and looked at the clock; it was near seven.  A door slammed, somewhere upstairs, so loud it made me jump; but she did not wake.  I went toward her, confused, and stumbling against the table, which was between us, but reached her at last.  Oh, I knew it!  She was dead!  People must die, even in their chairs, alone!  What difference did it make, how?  An empty cup was in her lap, bottom up; I set it carefully on the mantel shelf above her head.  Her handkerchief was crumpled in her nerveless hand; I drew it away and thrust it into my bosom.  My gloves tightened my hands as I tried to pull them off, and was tugging at them, when a door opened, and Veronica came in.

“She is dead,” I said.  “I can’t get them off.”

“It is false”; and she staggered backward, with her hand on her heart, till she fell against the wall.  I do not know how long we remained so, but I became aware of a great confusion—­cries, and exclamations; people were running in and out.  Fanny rolled on the floor in hysterics.

“Get up,” I said.  “I can’t move; help me.  Where did Verry go?”

She got up, and pulled me along.  I saw father raise mother in his arms.  The dreadful sight of her swaying arms and drooping head made me lose my breath; but Veronica forced me to endurance by clinging to me, and dragging me out of the room and upstairs.  She turned the key of the glass-door at the head of the passage, not letting go of me.  I took her by the arms, placed her in a chair, and closing my window curtains, sat down beside her in the dark.

“Where will they carry her?” she asked, shuddering, and putting her fingers in her ears.  “How the water splashes on the beach!  Is the tide coming in?”

She was appalled by the physical horror of death, and asked me incessant questions.

“Let us keep her away from the grave,” she said.

I could not answer, or hear her at last, for sleep overpowered me.  I struggled against it in vain.  It seemed the greatest good; let death and judgment come, I must sleep.  I threw myself on my bed, and the touch of the pillow sealed my eyes.  I started from a dream about something that happened when I was a little child.  “Veronica, are you here?”

“Mother is dead,” she answered.

A mighty anguish filled my breast.  Mother!—­her goodness and beauty, her pure heart, her simplicity—­I felt them all.  I pitied her dead, because she would never know how I valued her.  Veronica shed no tears, but sighed heavily. Duty sounded through her sighs.  “Verry, shall I take care of you?  I think I can.”  She shook her head; but presently she stretched her hands in search of my face, kissed it, and answered, “Perhaps.”

“You must go to your own room and rest.”

“Can you keep everybody from me?”

“I will try.”

Opening her window, she looked out over the earth wistfully, and at the sky, thickly strewn with stars, which revealed her face.  We heard somebody coming up the back stairs.