“I've come right over,” said she, in a soft voice; “but it ain't true what Henry said, is it?”
“What ain't true?” asked Ann, grimly.
“It ain't true you're goin' to have a funeral?” Tears welled up afresh in Belinda's blue eyes, and flowed slowly down her delicate cheeks, but not a muscle of her face changed, and she smiled still.
“Why can't I have a funeral?”
“Why, Ann, how can you have a funeral, when there ain't—when they 'ain't found him?”
“I'd like to know why I can't!”
Belinda's blue, weeping eyes surveyed her with the helpless bewilderment of a baby. “Why, Ann,” she gasped, “there won't be any—remains!”
“What of that? I guess I know it.”
“There won't be nothin' for anybody to go round an' look at; there won't be any coffin—Ann, you ain't goin' to have any coffin when he ain't found, be you?”
“Be you a fool, Belindy Lamb?” said Ann. A hard sniff came from Paulina Maria.