"Didn't I say that you were a handsome automaton?"
"I do not want any one to say hard things of me when I am dead—hard things that my son may hear."
"When you are dead! You talk as if you thought you were to die soon. You are of the stuff that wears to threescore-and-ten, and even beyond the Psalmist's limit. There is no friction for natures of your calibre. When Werther had shot himself, Charlotte went on cutting bread and butter, don't you know? It was her nature to be proper, and good, and useful, and never to give offence—her nature to cut bread and butter," concluded Jessie, laughing bitterly.
Christabel stayed with her for an hour, talking to her, consoling her, speaking hopefully of that unknown world, so fondly longed for, so piously believed in by the woman who had learnt her creed at Mrs. Tregonell's knees. Many tears were shed by Christabel during that hour of mournful talk; but not one by Jessie Bridgeman. Hers was a dry-eyed grief.
"After breakfast then we will walk to the Kieve," said Jessie, as Christabel left her. "Would it be too much to ask you to make it as early as you can?"
"I will go the moment I am free. Good-night, dear."
CHAPTER III.
DUEL OR MURDER?
All the household appeared at breakfast next morning; even poor Dopsy, who felt that she could not nurse her grief in solitude any longer. "It's behaving too much as if you were his widow," Mopsy had told her, somewhat harshly; and then there was the task of packing, since they were to leave Mount Royal at eleven, in order to be at Launceston in time for the one o'clock train. This morning's breakfast was less silent than the dinner of yesterday. Everybody felt as if Mr. Hamleigh had been dead at least a week.