"Where do you want him taken?" asked Homer, and lifted him in his arms.
She led the way to the little bedroom off the kitchen, opposite to the one in which in which her grandmother lay.
Homer laid My down upon the blue and white checked counterpane—spun in England by Myron's mother.
"Good-night!" he said. "Good-night, Myron!"
"Good-night!" she answered in almost a whisper, for she was inexpressibly weary. Almost before he had reached the next room, she had sunk down upon her bed.
It was broad daylight when Myron awoke and rose, chilled and stiff. Utter weariness had overcome the discomfort of her cramped position; she had slept as she had first thrown herself down; she shivered, as one does who has slept in his clothes. The morning air was cold, and the window-panes glistened with frost.
Hurrying out to the kitchen, she found Homer had done what he could for her comfort before leaving. The stove held a glowing mass of hardwood embers; evidently the fire had been well banked up before he stole away at dawn. The kettle stood singing on the stove; the table was drawn up by the fire, and awkwardly set out with dishes for her solitary breakfast.
* * * * * *
The hour of the funeral was at hand.
Mr. Muir, determined to have nothing to blame himself for in regard to his bargain, had come dressed in his official broadcloth. His horses stood outside the gate in all the panoply of sable plumes and black fly-netting, the latter surely superfluous, but ornamental. These horses looked as if they had never appeared before a less stately equipage than a hearse, yet every one had seen them pass that very morning dragging an unpainted lumber-wagon. They looked as if they had never known a baser burden than "stained cherry with mahogany finish, plated handles and bevelled glass," yet an unplaned pine box had constituted their load that morning; and as they passed, each on-looker had said, to the other, "There goes old Mrs. Holder's shell."