“Oh,” cried the girl, “I should not like to think of that: if father had ceased to think of me even before----” “It is comforting to me,” said Miss Bethune, “because I am of those that are going, and you, Dora, are of those that are staying. I’m glad to think that the silver chain will be loosed and the golden bowl broken--all the links that bind us to the earth, and all the cares about what is to happen after.” “Have you cares about what is to happen after?” cried Dora, “Father has, for he has me; but you, Miss Bethune?” Dora never forgot, or thought she would never forget, the look that was cast upon her. “And I,” said Miss Bethune, “have not even you, have nobody belonging to me. Well,” she said, going on with a heavy long-drawn breath, “it looks as if it were true.” This was the girl’s first discovery of what youth is generally so long in finding out, that in her heedlessness and unconscious conviction that what related to herself was the most important in the world, and what befel an elderly neighbour of so much less consequence, she had done, or at least said, a cruel thing. But she did not know how to mend matters, and so went on by her friend’s side dumb, confusedly trying to enter into, now that it was too late, the sombre complications of another’s thought. Nothing more was said till they were close to the great hotel, which shone out with its many windows luminous upon the soft background of the night. Then Miss Bethune put her hand almost harshly upon Dora’s arm. “You will remember, Dora,” she said, “that the person we are going to see is a dying person, and in all the world it is agreed that where a dying person is he or she is the chief person, and to be considered above all. It is, maybe, a superstition, but it is so allowed. Their wants and their wishes go before all; and the queen herself, if she were coming into that chamber, would bow to it like all the rest: and so must you. It is, perhaps, not quite sincere, for why should a woman be more thought of because she is going to die? That is not a quality, you will say: but yet it’s a superstition, and approved of by all the civilised world.” “Oh, Miss Bethune,” cried Dora, “I know that I deserve that you should say this to me: but yet----” Her companion made no reply, but led the way up the great stairs.