All this was said apart.  Perhaps a germ of love was springing in their hearts so pure that it might blossom in Paradise, since it could not be matured on earth; for women worship such gentle dignity as his, and the proud, contemplative, yet kindly, soul is oftenest captivated by simplicity like hers.  But while they spoke softly, and he was watching the happy sadness, the lightsome shadows, the shy yearnings, of a maiden’s nature, the wind through the Notch took a deeper and drearier sound.  It seemed, as the fanciful stranger said, like the choral strain of the spirits of the blast who in old Indian times had their dwelling among these mountains and made their heights and recesses a sacred region.  There was a wail along the road as if a funeral were passing.  To chase away the gloom, the family threw pine-branches on their fire till the dry leaves crackled and the flame arose, discovering once again a scene of peace and humble happiness.  The light hovered about them fondly and caressed them all.  There were the little faces of the children peeping from their bed apart, and here the father’s frame of strength, the mother’s subdued and careful mien, the high-browed youth, the budding girl and the good old grandam, still knitting in the warmest place.

The aged woman looked up from her task, and with fingers ever busy was the next to speak.

“Old folks have their notions,” said she, “as well as young ones.  You’ve been wishing and planning and letting your heads run on one thing and another till you’ve set my mind a-wandering too.  Now, what should an old woman wish for, when she can go but a step or two before she comes to her grave?  Children, it will haunt me night and day till I tell you.”

“What is it, mother?” cried the husband and wife at once.

Then the old woman, with an air of mystery which drew the circle closer round the fire, informed them that she had provided her grave-clothes some years before—­a nice linen shroud, a cap with a muslin ruff, and everything of a finer sort than she had worn since her wedding-day.  But this evening an old superstition had strangely recurred to her.  It used to be said in her younger days that if anything were amiss with a corpse—­if only the ruff were not smooth or the cap did not set right—­the corpse, in the coffin and beneath the clods, would strive to put up its cold hands and arrange it.  The bare thought made her nervous.

“Don’t talk so, grandmother,” said the girl, shuddering.

“Now,” continued the old woman, with singular earnestness, yet smiling strangely at her own folly, “I want one of you, my children, when your mother is dressed and in the coffin,—­I want one of you to hold a looking-glass over my face.  Who knows but I may take a glimpse at myself and see whether all’s right?”

“Old and young, we dream of graves and monuments,” murmured the stranger-youth.  “I wonder how mariners feel when the ship is sinking and they, unknown and undistinguished, are to be buried together in the ocean, that wide and nameless sepulchre?”