There was no one in the kitchen when Lisbeth entered and threw herself into the chair.  She looked round with blank eyes at the dirt and confusion on which the bright afternoon’s sun shone dismally; it was all of a piece with the sad confusion of her mind—­that confusion which belongs to the first hours of a sudden sorrow, when the poor human soul is like one who has been deposited sleeping among the ruins of a vast city, and wakes up in dreary amazement, not knowing whether it is the growing or the dying day—­not knowing why and whence came this illimitable scene of desolation, or why he too finds himself desolate in the midst of it.

At another time Lisbeth’s first thought would have been, “Where is Adam?” but the sudden death of her husband had restored him in these hours to that first place in her affections which he had held six-and-twenty years ago.  She had forgotten his faults as we forget the sorrows of our departed childhood, and thought of nothing but the young husband’s kindness and the old man’s patience.  Her eyes continued to wander blankly until Seth came in and began to remove some of the scattered things, and clear the small round deal table that he might set out his mother’s tea upon it.

“What art goin’ to do?” she said, rather peevishly.

“I want thee to have a cup of tea, Mother,” answered Seth, tenderly.  “It’ll do thee good; and I’ll put two or three of these things away, and make the house look more comfortable.”

“Comfortable!  How canst talk o’ ma’in’ things comfortable?  Let a-be, let a-be.  There’s no comfort for me no more,” she went on, the tears coming when she began to speak, “now thy poor feyther’s gone, as I’n washed for and mended, an’ got’s victual for him for thirty ‘ear, an’ him allays so pleased wi’ iverything I done for him, an’ used to be so handy an’ do the jobs for me when I war ill an’ cumbered wi’ th’ babby, an’ made me the posset an’ brought it upstairs as proud as could be, an’ carried the lad as war as heavy as two children for five mile an’ ne’er grumbled, all the way to Warson Wake, ‘cause I wanted to go an’ see my sister, as war dead an’ gone the very next Christmas as e’er come.  An’ him to be drownded in the brook as we passed o’er the day we war married an’ come home together, an’ he’d made them lots o’ shelves for me to put my plates an’ things on, an’ showed ’em me as proud as could be, ’cause he know’d I should be pleased.  An’ he war to die an’ me not to know, but to be a-sleepin’ i’ my bed, as if I caredna nought about it.  Eh!  An’ me to live to see that!  An’ us as war young folks once, an’ thought we should do rarely when we war married.  Let a-be, lad, let a-be!  I wonna ha’ no tay.  I carena if I ne’er ate nor drink no more.  When one end o’ th’ bridge tumbles down, where’s th’ use o’ th’ other stannin’?  I may’s well die, an’ foller my old man.  There’s no knowin’ but he’ll want me.”