The evening was dull. I asked Aaron to lend me a sermon. He inquired,—
"What for?"
"To go to sleep over," I said.
"And are they so soporific?" he laughingly asked.
"It's a great while since I've read one. What have you been doing lately in your profession? anything remarkable?"
He brought me one. It aroused me. The evening passed on. I finished the sermon. Bedtime came in the parsonage, and no messenger from Mr. Axtell for me.
Aaron offered to go. I said, "No, they were such strange people, I would rather not." Chloe came in from the kitchen to say that "Kate, Miss Axtell's girl, had come, and said, 'Miss Lettie was too ill for Miss Percival to take care of her. Mr. Abraham couldn't leave her.'"
The funeral was to be on the morrow.
* * * * *
The morrow came. Early after breakfast I went to the house whereto I had gone with the neighbor's boy two nights before. I met Mr. Axtell just leaving. I inquired after his sister.