THE morning after the funeral, Chase, upon coming down to breakfast, found Mrs. Franklin already in the sitting-room. She had not taken the trouble to put on the new mourning garb which had been hastily made for her; her attire was a brown dress which she had worn in Florida. She sat motionless in her easy-chair, with her arms folded, her feet on a footstool, and her face had the same stony look which had not varied since she was told, upon her arrival at Raleigh, that her son was dead.

"Well, ma'am, I hope you have slept?" Chase asked, as he extended his hand.

She gave him hers lifelessly.

"Yes; I believe so."

"Ruth will soon be here now," her son-in-law went on, as he seated himself. "I told Hill not to let her travel straight through, for it would only tire her; and she needs to keep well, ma'am, so as to be of use to you. I'm going to drive over to Old Fort to-day, starting late—about six o'clock, I guess. I've calculated that if Ruth spent a night in New York (as she probably did, waiting for Hill to get there), and if she stops over one night on the way, she would reach Old Fort to-morrow noon. Then I'll bring her right on to L'Hommedieu."

"Yes, bring her. And let her stay."

"As long as ever you like, ma'am. I can't hold on long myself just now, but I'll leave her with you, and come for her later. I am thinking of taking a house at Newport for the summer; I hope that you and Miss Dolly will feel like spending some time there with Ruth? Say August and September?"

"I shall travel no more. Leave her with me; it won't be for long."

"You must cheer up, ma'am—for your daughters' sake."

"Ruth has you," Mrs. Franklin responded. "And you are good." Her tone remained lifeless. But it was evident that her words were sincere; that a vague sense of justice had made her rouse herself long enough to utter the commendation.

"That's a mistake. I've never laid claim to anything of that sort," Chase answered rather curtly, his face growing red.

"When I say 'good' I mean that you will be good to Ruth," said the mother; "it is the only sort of goodness I care for! At present you don't like Dolly. But Dolly is so absolutely devoted to her sister that you will end by accepting her, faults and all; you won't mind her little hostilities. I can therefore trust them both to you—I do so with confidence," she added. And, with her set face unchanged, she made him a little bow.

"Why talk that way, ma'am? We hope to have you with us many years longer," Chase answered. "A green old age is a very fine thing to see." (He thought rather well of that phrase.) "My grandmother—she stuck it out to ninety-eight, and I hope you'll do the same."

"Probably she wished to live. I have no such desire. As I sat here beside my son the morning we arrived, I knew that I longed to go, too. I want to be with him—and with my husband—and my dear father. My life here has now come to its end, for they were my life."

"That queer Dolly knew!" thought Chase. "But perhaps they've talked about it?" He asked this question aloud. "Have you told your daughter that, ma'am?"

"Told my poor Dolly? Of course not. Please go to breakfast, Mr. Chase; I am sure it is ready." Chase went to the dining-room. A moment later Dolly came in to pour out the coffee.

"Is there anything I can do for you this morning?" Chase asked, as he took a piece of Zoe's hot corn-bread. "I am going to drive over to Old Fort this afternoon, and wait there for Ruth, for I've calculated the trains, and I reckon that she and Hill will reach there to-morrow."

Dolly looked at him for a moment. Then she said: "You have a great deal of influence with Genevieve; perhaps you could make her understand that for the present it is better that she should not try to see mother. Tell her that mother is much more broken than she was yesterday; tell her that she is very nervous; tell her, in short, anything you please, provided it keeps her away!" Dolly added, suddenly giving up her long effort to hide her bitter dislike.

Chase glanced at her, and said nothing; he ate his corn-bread, and finished his first cup of coffee in silence. Then, as she poured out the second, he said: "Well, she might keep away entirely? She might leave Asheville? She has a brother in St. Louis, and she likes the place, I know; I've heard her say so. If her property here could be taken off her hands—at a good valuation—and if a well-arranged, well-furnished house could be provided for her there, near her brother, I guess she'd go. I even guess she'd go pretty quick," he added; "she'd be a long sight happier there than here." For though he had no especial affection for Genevieve, he at least liked her better than he liked Dolly.

Dolly, however, was indifferent to his liking or his disliking. "Oh!" she said, her gaze growing vague in the intensity of her wish, "if it could only be done!" Then her brow contracted, she pushed her plate away. "But we cannot possibly be so much indebted to you—I mean so much more indebted."

"You needn't count yourself in, if it worries you," Chase answered with his deliberate utterance. "For I should be doing it principally for Ruth, you know. When she comes, the first thing she'll want to do, of course, is to make her mother comfortable. And if Gen's clearing out, root and branch, will help that, I rather guess Ruth can fix it."

"You mean that you can."

"Well, we're one; I don't think that even you can quite break that up yet," Chase answered, ironically. Then he went on in a gentler tone: "I want to do everything I can for your mother. She has always been very kind to me."

And Dolly was perfectly well aware that, as he looked at her (looked at her yellow, scowling face), his feeling for her had become simply pity, pity for the sickly old maid whom no one could possibly please—not even her sweet young sister.

Soon after breakfast Chase went to the Cottage. Genevieve received him gratefully. Her cheeks were pale; her eyes showed the traces of the tears of the previous day, the day of the funeral.

Her visitor remained two hours. Then he rose, saying, "Well, I must see about horses if I am to get to Old Fort to-night. I shall tell Ruth about this new plan of ours, Gen. She'll be sure to like it; she'll enjoy going to St. Louis to see you; we'll both come often. And you'll be glad of a change yourself. The other house, too, is likely to be shut up. For, though they don't say so yet, I guess the old lady and Dolly will end by spending most of their time with Ruth, in New York."

"I must go over and see mamma at once," answered Genevieve. "I must have her opinion, first of all. I shall ask mamma's advice more than ever now, Horace; it will be my pleasure as well as my duty. For Jay was very fond of his mother; he often told me—" Her voice quivered, and she stopped.

"Now, Gen, listen to me," said Chase, taking her hand. "Don't go over there at all to-day. And, when you go to-morrow, and later, don't try to see the old lady; wait till she asks for you. For she is all unhinged; I've just come from there, and I know. She is very nervous, and everything upsets her. It won't do either of you any good to meet at present; it would only be a trial to you both. And Dolly says so, too. Promise me that you'll take care of yourself; promise me especially that you won't leave the house at all to-day, but stay quietly at home and rest."

Genevieve promised. But after he had gone, the sense of duty that was a part of her nature led her to reconsider her determination. That her husband should have been laid in his grave only twenty-four hours before, and that she, the widow, should not see his bereaved mother through the whole day, when their houses stood side by side; that they should not mingle their tears, and their prayers also, while their sorrow was still so new and so poignant—this seemed to her wrong. In addition, it seemed hardly decent. The mother was ill and broken? So much the more, then, was it her duty to go to her. At four o'clock, therefore, she put on her bonnet and its long crape veil, and her black mantle, and crossed the meadow towards L'Hommedieu.

Mrs. Franklin was still sitting in the easy-chair with her arms folded, as she had sat in the morning when Chase came in. The only difference was that now a newspaper lay across her lap; she had hastily taken it from the table, and spread it over her knees, when she recognized her daughter-in-law's step on the veranda.

Genevieve came in. She was startled at first by the sight of the brown dress, which happened to have red tints as well as brown in its fabric. But it was only another cross to bear; her husband's family had always given her so many! "I hope you slept last night, mamma?" she said, bending to kiss Mrs. Franklin's forehead.

"Yes, I believe so," the elder woman answered, mechanically, as she had answered Chase. She was now indefinitely the elder. Between the wife of forty, and the slender, graceful, vivacious mother of fifty-eight, there had been but the difference of one short generation. But now the mother might have been any age; her shoulders were bent, her skin looked withered, and all the outlines of her face were set and sharpened.

Genevieve took off her crape mantle, folding it (with her habitual carefulness) before she laid it on a chair. "You must let me see to your mourning, mamma," she said, as she thus busied herself. "I suppose your new dress doesn't fit you? It was made so hastily. I shall be sitting quietly at home for the present, day after day, and it will occupy me and take my thoughts from myself to have some sewing to do. And I know how to cut crape to advantage also, for I was in mourning so long when I was a girl."

Mrs. Franklin made no reply.

Her daughter-in-law, seating herself beside her, stroked back her gray hair. "You look so tired! And I am afraid Dolly is tired out also, as she isn't with you?"

"I sent her to bed half an hour ago; for I am afraid one of her attacks is coming on," Mrs. Franklin answered, her lips compressing themselves as she endured the caress. Genevieve's touch was gentle. But Mrs. Franklin did not like to have her hair stroked.

"Poor Dolly! But, surely, it is not surprising. I must see her before I go back. But shall I go back, mamma? As you are alone, wouldn't it be better for me to stay with you for the rest of the day? I could read to you; I should love to do it. It seems providential that my dear copy of Quiet Hours should have come back from Philadelphia only yesterday; I had sent it to Philadelphia, you know, to be rebound. But there have been greater providences still; for instance, how I was able to get to Raleigh in time to see our dear one. For the stage had gone when Horace's telegram came, and Mr. Bebb's having arranged, by a mere chance, to drive to Old Fort with that pair of fast horses at the very moment I wished to start—surely that was providential? But you look so white; do let me get you some tea? Or, better still, won't you go to bed? I should so love to undress you, and bathe your face with cologne."

Mrs. Franklin shook her head; through her whole life she had detested cologne. On the top of her dumb despair, on the top of her profound enmity, rose again (a consciousness sickening to herself) all the petty old irritations against this woman; against her "providential"; her Quiet Hours; her "surely"; her "cutting crape to advantage"; and even her "cologne." She closed her eyes so that at least she need not see her.

"I have had a letter from my sister," Genevieve went on. "I brought it with me, thinking that you might like to hear it, for it is so beautifully expressed. As you don't care to lie down, I'll read it to you now. My sister reminds me, mamma, that in the midst of my grief I ought to remember that I have had one great blessing—a blessing not granted to all wives; and that is, that from the first moment of our engagement to his last breath, dear Jay was perfectly devoted to me; he never looked—he never cared to look—at any one else!"

Mrs. Franklin refolded her arms; her hands, laid over her elbows, tightened on her sleeves.

Genevieve began to read the letter. But when she came to the passage she had quoted, the tears began to fall. "I won't go on," she said, as she wiped them away. "For we must not dwell upon our griefs—don't you think so, mamma? Not purposely remind ourselves of them; surely that is unwise. I have already arranged to give away Jay's clothes, for instance—give them to persons who really need them. For as long as they are in the house I can't help cr-crying whenever I see them." Her voice broke, and she stopped; her effort at self-control, both here and at home, was sincere.

She replaced the letter in her pocket. And as she did so, the crape of her sleeve, catching on the edge of the newspaper which lay over Mrs. Franklin's knees, drew it so far to one side that it fell to the floor. And there, revealed on the mother's lap, lay a little heap: a package of letters in a school-boy hand; a battered top, and one or two other toys; a baby's white robe yellow with age; some curls of soft hair, and a little pair of baby shoes.

"Oh, mamma, are you letting yourself brood over these things? Surely it is not wise? Let me put them away."

But Mrs. Franklin, gathering her poor treasures from Genevieve's touch, placed them herself in her secretary, which she locked. Then she began to walk to and fro across the broad room—to and fro, to and fro, her step feverishly quick.

After a minute, Genevieve followed her. "Mamma, try to be resigned. Try to be calm."

Mrs. Franklin stopped. She faced round upon her daughter-in-law. "You dare to offer advice to me, you barren woman? You tell me to be resigned? What do you know of a mother's love for her son—you who have never borne a child? You can comprehend neither my love nor my grief. Providential, is it, that you reached Raleigh in time? Providence is a strange thing if it assists you. For you have killed your husband—killed him as certainly as though you had given him slow poison. You broke up his life—the only life he loved; you never rested until you had forced him out of the navy. And then, your greed for money made you urge him incessantly to go into business—into business for himself, which he knew nothing about. You gave him no peace; you drove him on; your determination to have all the things you care for—a house of your own and a garden; chairs and tables; handsome clothes; money for charities" (impossible to describe the bitterness of this last phrase)—"these have been far more important to you than anything else—than his own happiness, or his own welfare. And, lately, your process of murder has gone on faster. For he has been very ill all winter (I know it now!) and you have not been near him; you have stayed here month after month, buying land with Ruth's money, filling your pockets and telling him nothing of it, adding to your house, and saying to yourself comfortably meanwhile that this wise course of yours would in the end bring him round to your views. It has brought him round—to his death! His life for years has been wretched, and you were the cause of the misery. For it was his feeling of being out of his place, his gradual discouragement, his sense of failure, that finally broke down his health. If he had never seen you, he might have lived to be an old man, filling with honor the position he was fitted for. Now, at thirty-nine, he is dead. He was faithful to you, you say? He was. And it is my greatest regret! I do not wish ever to see your face again. For he was the joy of my life, and you were the curse of his. Go!"

These sentences, poured out in clear, vibrating tones, had filled Genevieve with horror. And something that was almost fear followed as the mother, coming nearer, her eyes blazing in her death-like face, emphasized her last words by stretching out her arm with a gesture that was fiercely grand—the grandeur of her bereavement and her despair.

Genevieve escaped to the hall. Then, after waiting for a moment uncertainly, she hurried home.

When the sound of her footsteps had died away, Mrs. Franklin went to the secretary and took out again the dress and the top, the little shoes and the baby-curls; seating herself, she began to rearrange them. But her hands only moved for a moment or two. Then her head sank back, her eyes closed.