He held out his hand. I fulfilled my original intention.
"I thank you," he said, and went down alone to his mother's funeral.
How do people ever live through funerals? The solemn tolling of the bell went on. The village-people came, one by one. Aaron's voice it was that was heard in the burial-service that came sounding in to me, sitting close beside the bed whereon the sick one lay. There seemed a comfort in getting near to her. At last—what a cycle of thought! time it was at last—I heard the moving sound of many feet, and then I knew that they were carrying her out, out of the house where she had lived, out of the house wherein she had died, carrying her forth for burial,—forth to the grave her only son had made for her; and I, little, shivering, cowardly soul, hid my face in my hands, and let my tears fall,—not because I knew this proud lady dead,—not because a fibre from my warm heart was being drawn out to be knitted into that fathom-deep grave, for it never would be one of my graves,—but because this death and sorrow were in the world, and I must live my life out in a world with them. The funeral-bell stirred me. I looked out from the window, and saw the long procession moving slowly on.
Katie startled me, coming in.
"The minister's wife is down-stairs; she wants to know if she may come up," she said.
"She is my sister, Katie; yes, I think she may come."
I was so relieved to see Sophie; it was getting back to self again, out of which I had gone in this house. I could not help expressing my relief.
"There's no one down there to close the house and put away the sad reminders," Sophie said, after asking about my patient. "Some one ought to make it more cheerful down there before Mr. Axtell comes."
"Won't you, Sophie, since there's no one else?"
I could not yet go into the one room. Death had been too recently there.