Her mind went violently, as it were with a violent clutch of both her hands, as of one in horrible dark, clutching at means of light, to the thought that next week she was to be away at school—to be right away and in the safe middle of lots and lots of girls, and only girls. She had a frightening, a shuddering, at the thought of men who caused these terrible things to be done, who mysteriously and horribly somehow had done this thing to Anna.
The long, black finger poked at the page again. “There. ‘This our brother.’ Father will say ‘This our sister.’ Do you see, Rosalie? This our sister.”
A shower of tears sprang out of Rosalie’s eyes and pattered upon the page.
She wiped them. She set her teeth. A new and most awful concern possessed her. ‘This our sister.’ Would father remember? When he came to brother would he remember to say sister? And when ‘his’ would he remember to say ‘her?’ She searched for the places. A most frightful agitation seized her that father would forget. What would happen if he forgot?
And at the very first place father did forget!
They were come from the church to the grave. They were grouped about that most terrible and frightening pit. Rosalie was clutching her mother’s dear hand, and in her other hand held her prayer book. There it was, the first place for the change. Brokenly her father’s voice came out upon the air, and at his very first word—the fatal word—Rosalie caught her breath in sharp and agonized dismay.
“Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live and is full of misery....”
She called out—she could not help it—“Father!”
Her mother’s hand, squeezing hers, restrained her.
The broken voice went on “... cometh up and is cut down like a flower.”