“Wait till I come again, then you shall hear lots.”
CHAPTER XV.
PREPARING FOR THE FUNERAL.
Early the next morning, Mrs. Judson went out from the basement of her house, almost for the first time in her life, and in company with Jane Kelly passed into the street. None of the servants were up, and the lady had put on a walking-dress, so plain and dark, that no one would have been likely to notice her had many persons been abroad. Through that side-gate in the garden-wall, Jane conducted her charge, and they passed together down that same gloomy path into a little stone building near the water.
“Don’t be afraid; it’s nothing when you get used to it,” she said, patronizingly. “I remember almost fainting the first time I came here, but now I don’t even think of it.”
All this show of courage did not prevent Mrs. Judson from turning cold as marble when that door was thrown open, and she found herself close by a coarse pine coffin, from which Jane was composedly removing the lid.
The lady cast one glance at the dead-whiteness of the face revealed to her, and retreated into the open air, pale, almost, as the corpse she had left.
Jane followed her, swinging the key on her finger.
“Is it her, lady?” she asked, in a whisper.
“Yes.”
“Well, what am I to do?”