After that night Lois never left her little shanty.  The days that followed were like one long Christmas; for her poor neighbors, black and white, had some plot among themselves, and worked zealously to make them seem so to her.  It was easy to make these last days happy for the simple little soul who had always gathered up every fragment of pleasure in her featureless life, and made much of it, and rejoiced over it.  She grew bewildered, sometimes, lying on her wooden settle by the fire; people had always been friendly, taken care of her, but now they were eager in their kindness, as though the time were short.  She did not understand the reason, at first; she did not want to die:  yet if it hurt her, when it grew clear at last, no one knew it; it was not her way to speak of pain.  Only, as she grew weaker, day by day, she began to set her house in order, as one might say, in a quaint, almost comical fashion, giving away everything she owned, down to her treasures of colored bottles and needlework’s, mending her father’s clothes, and laying them out in her drawers; lastly, she had Barney brought in from the country, and every day would creep to the window to see him fed and chirrup to him, whereat the poor old beast would look up with his dim eye, and try to neigh a feeble answer.  Kitts used to come every day to see her, though he never said much when he was there:  he lugged his great copy of the Venus del Pardo along with him one day, and left it, thinking she would like to look at it; Knowles called it trash, when he came.  The Doctor came always in the morning; he told her he would read to her one day, and did it always afterwards, putting on his horn spectacles, and holding her old Bible close up to his rugged, anxious face.  He used to read most from the Gospel of St. John.  She liked better to hear him than any of the others, even than Margaret, whose voice was so low and tender:  something in the man’s half-savage nature was akin to the child’s.

As the day drew near when she was to go, every pleasant trifle seemed to gather a deeper, solemn meaning.  Jenny Balls came in one night, and old Mrs. Polston.

“We thought you’d like to see her weddin’-dress, Lois,” said the old woman, taking off Jenny’s cloak, “seein’ as the weddin’ was to hev been to-morrow, and was put off on ’count of you.”

Lois did like to see it; sat up, her face quite flushed to see how nicely it fitted, and stroked back Jenny’s soft hair under the veil.  And Jenny, being a warm-hearted little thing, broke into a sobbing fit, saying that it spoiled it all to have Lois gone.

“Don’t muss your veil, child,” said Mrs. Polston.

But Jenny cried on, hiding her face in Lois’s skinny hand, until Sam Polston came in, when she grew quiet and shy.  The poor deformed girl lay watching them, as they talked.  Very pretty Jenny looked, with her blue eyes and damp pink cheeks; and it was a manly, grave love in Sam’s face, when it turned to her.  A different love from any she had known:  better, she thought.  It could not be helped; but it was better.