"But one ought to pay decent respect to a custom sanctioned by all civilized people. There will be a talk about it. Folks may think it our fault." "I do not believe half a dozen people would notice it. It's only a custom after all. I never did like it. We will see how she feels about it." "Chilian, you make that child of as much importance as if she was a woman grown. You will have your hands full by and by. She will think every one must bow down to her and consult her whims and fancies." "We will see;" nodding indifferently. He didn't want her around in garments of woe. Very gently he mentioned the subject. She glanced up out of sweet, entreating eyes. She had been standing by him, looking over a very choice book of engravings. "Yes," she returned. "Rachel spoke of it. And you know there are some people who wear white, and some who put on yellow. Black isn't a nice color. Do you like it?" He shook his head. "It is the inside of me that aches now and then, when I think I shall never see him come sailing back, that I must be a long while without him until I go to their land. But he must be very happy with mother, and that is what I think of when I feel how hard it is;" and the tears stole softly down her cheeks. "I have Rachel and you, and he said you would always love me and care for me. But I try not to feel sorry, and if I had on a black frock I couldn't help but think of it all the time. Then I should be sorry inside and outside both, and is it right to make yourself unhappy when you believe people have gone to heaven?" She said it so simply that he was deeply moved. She had been alone with her sorrow all this time, when they had thought her indifferent. "You need not wear black--I wish you would not. I want you to get real well and happy. And you are a brave little girl to think of them and refrain from grief." She wiped away the tears lest they should fall on the book. "At first it was quite dreadful to me. I couldn't say anything. Then I remembered how we used to talk of mother, as if she was only in the next room. And then I sit here and think, when the sky is such a splendid blue and there come little white rifts in it, as if somewhere it opened, I can almost see them. Can't people come back for a few moments?" "Only in dreams, I imagine." "I can _almost_ see them. And they are so glad to be together. And I know father says, 'Cynthia will come by and by.' But twenty years, or thirty years, is a long while to wait." Perhaps she wouldn't need to wait so long, he thought, as he noted the transparent face. "And now I should be sorry to go away from you," she said, with grave sweetness. "I think your father meant you should stay a long while with me when he gave you to me;" and he pressed her closer to his heart.