She remembered the low respectful voice of the building superintendent:  “There’s an afternoon tea on the floor below, so the casket and the funeral guests had better go down by the freight elevator.”

She gave a strained little laugh at that and asked, “I wonder when I’ll cry?”

The preacher, a tall kindly young man, came in and seemed about to speak; but after a look at her face he stopped.  He had come from a church two blocks away.  Joe and Amy had never been to his church, and it was Nourse who had brought him here.  Nourse had learned of him from the undertaker.

Several boxes of flowers came.

Later from a milliner’s shop two pretty autumn hats arrived.

The guests began arriving—­silent, awkward strangers—­ten or twelve.

She heard the nurse come in with Susette and take her back to the nursery.

There was no music.  Not a sound.

At last the silence was broken by the minister’s low voice.  Thank heaven that was kindly.  He was brief, and yet too long; for from the apartment one flight below, before he had finished, the festive throb of a little orchestra was heard.

He prayed just a minute or two.

Then they followed the coffin out into the hall and back and down by the freight elevator.

A motor hearse was waiting below.

When the burial was over, she came home alone with Joe.  She sat in the living-room watching his face, while the dusk grew mercifully deep.  Then she made him eat some supper and take something to make him sleep.  And later in her own small room she lay on her bed, dishevelled, tearless, her mind stunned, her feelings queer and uneven, now surging up, now cold and still.

“Where has she gone?  What do I know? . . .  What do I believe?  Where is God? . . .  What is life?  What am I here for?”

With a pang she recalled the town in Ohio where she and Amy had been born, and her thoughts went drifting for awhile.  Pictures floated in and out, pictures of her life at home.  She was hungry for them now, the old stays and firm supports, the old frame house, her father and the God in the yellow church, the quiet river, the high school and that friendly group of eager girl companions, with work, discussions, young ideals, plans and dreams of life and love. . . .  All up by the roots in a few swift weeks!

“Shall I go back?” she asked herself.  “Do I want to go—­now that Dad is dead, and most of the girls have gone away, scattered all over the country?” Again she lapsed.  “I’m too dull to think.”  She let the pictures drift again.  Church sociables, a Christmas tree, dances, suppers and buggy rides, picnics by the river.  How small and very far-away and trivial they now appeared.  All had pointed toward New York.  “Go back and marry, settle down?  Do I want to?  No.  And anyhow, there’s Joe and Susette.  My place is right here—­and I’m going to stay.  But what is it going to mean to me?  What do I want in this city now?”