Miss Euphrasia could no more help talking so—­given the right circumstances to draw her forth—­than she could help breathing.  Her whole nature was fluid to the truth, as the atoms she spoke of.  Talking with her, you saw, as in a divine kaleidoscope, the gleams and shiftings and combinings of heavenly and internal things; shown in simplest movings and relations of most real and every day experience and incident.

But she never went on—­and “went over,” exhorting.  She did not believe in discourses, she said, even from the pulpit—­very much.  She believed in a sermon, and letting it go.  And a sermon is just a word; as the Word gives itself, in some fresh manna-particle, to any soul.

So when the girls stood silent, as girls will, not knowing how to break a pause that has come upon such speaking, she broke it herself, with a very simple question; a question of mere little business that she had come to ask Dot.

“Were the little under-kerchiefs done?”

It was just the same sweet, cheery tone; she dropped nothing, she took up nothing, turning from the inward to the outside.  It was all one quiet, harmonious sense of wholeness; living, and expression of living.  That was what made Miss Euphrasia’s “words” chord so pleasantly, always, without any jar, upon whatever string was being played; and the impulse and echo of them to run on through the music afterward, as one clear bell-stroke marking an accent, will seem to send its lingering impression through the unaccented measures following.

Dot went into the house and got the things; fine cambric neck-covers, frilled around the throat with delicate lace.  She folded them small, and put them in a soft paper.  Miss Kirkbright took the parcel, and paid Dot the money for her work; she gave her three dollars.  Then she said to Sylvie,—­

“Will you walk as far as the car corner with me?  I have missed a real call that I meant to have had with you.  I have been to your house.”

“Did you see mother?” Sylvie asked, as they walked on, having said good-by, and passed out through the shop.

“No:  Sabina said she was lying down, and I would not have her disturbed.  I came partly to tell you a little news.  Amy is engaged to Mr. Robert Truesdaile.  They will be married in the fall, and go out to England.  He has relatives there; his mother’s family.  There is an uncle living near Manchester; a large cotton manufacturer; he would like to take his nephew into the business; he has a great desire to get him there and make an Englishman of him.”

“Does Amy like it?  I mean, going to England?  I am ever so glad for her being so happy.”

“Yes, she likes it.  At any rate she likes, as we all do, the new pleasant beginnings.  We are all made to like fresh corners to turn, unless they seem very dark ones, or unless we have grown very old and tired, which I think there is never any need of doing.”